Target Practice versus Tolerance
by Stupe
Summary: Sixteen soldiers held captive in a South American jungle, used as training aids for young hunters of an alien predatory race and watched over by four keepers. Rated Mature for language and themes, and fair warning: might not be completed. Posted by popular request.
1. Chapter 1

Hello All! So here's the deal...

I'm not done with Start of a New Life, but my ability to focus on it comes and goes, and life gets in the way. I'm working on Chapter 31, I promise! That story IS going somewhere, I swear. Lots of moving parts mean that I have to be on my game when I post the next chapter, and you know how meticulous I am. I want to be sure I get it right before I put it up.

Regarding Not All Pets are for Hunting...I'm leaving that story hanging too, because I feel like it's incomplete and needs to be wrapped up. At times I do focus my attention there and I've considered just marking it Complete, but...it just doesn't feel that way to me, and I find myself working on another chapter here and there, just haven't decided how to end it yet. So stay tuned!

This new story isn't new for me, it's one of the ones I'd started, gotten a good way into, then abandoned for the better storyline of Chosen. I've had a lot of requests to post the incomplete stories that led to my settling on Chosen, and this is one of them. There might be sections and scenarios that are familiar to my readers, sort of an insight to how I write, sometimes stealing an idea from one story to incorporate it into another. As a matter of fact, there's a major steal used in Pets in this first chapter.

I posted two sections/chapters to start with, to help get you into the story and grounded. This story feels like it should be fast paced to me, with short chapters to keep up the energy level, in a totally different style than Chosen/Start or Pets. As with any story I post, toss out what I've established in my other stories and take this one on its own merit, without the culture/world I've created elsewhere. Read it and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer for this story: Lots of bad language and attempted rape eventually. A ton of misogynistic BS...hell, it's the military! I don't own Predator(s) and I'm not making any money off this fanfic. Give me reviews and that will give me the green light to give you more chapters, that's the deal! :)

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><p>I was a good way up the treacherous, rocky trail, very near the summit, when I heard a familiar, rapid ticking that made me freeze, then look up.<p>

A familiar humongous humanoid alien was perched on a large boulder at the side of the trail ahead, crouched down on his haunches, his elbows sticking out on either side of him as he rested his gauntlet-covered forearms on his wide-spread armored thighs. He was hunched, some of his thick banded hairs swinging in the breeze, and as I stared he raised his right hand, clawed pointer finger extended upward, then he shook it back and forth. The universal no-no-no. Mother. Fucker.

"Aw, _fuck_," I whined.

He trilled then jumped down off the house-sized boulder, his landing deliberately heavy. Believe me, I noticed. If he'd wanted to, he could be silent. He was broadcasting warning to me. To back it up, he lifted his right hand and extended the twin serrated blades housed in his right gauntlet. They flashed in the sunlight, each two feet long and wickedly sharpened to a razor's edge. His mood was definitely not happy to see me...then again, it never was.

His opposite hand, the one not clenched in a fist and backed by blades, extended toward me, palm-up. He wagged his fingers and I sighed, then lifted the pulse rifle and handed it over. Disarmed, I scowled as he tossed his head, motioning with his chin that I should head back down the path.

"Fuckin Lurch," I muttered, but turned and started to retrace my steps, painfully aware of the seven and a half foot tall, heavily muscled and armed alien behind me.

There was a pattern to this. Took awhile but we were starting to catch on. Me and the other soldiers from my squad, I mean. Kidnapped and held captive in a small remote encampment maybe two miles from the cliff face I'd just been intercepted from climbing. We were closely guarded by our captors, except for those times when they just up and disappeared, leaving us the pulse rifles they'd confiscated when they'd first captured us. The first time that had happened we'd formed up and made our way from the camp, creeping through the surrounding jungle. We'd trekked maybe an hour before we were set upon and attacked, again by these aggressive and predatory aliens. That was when we'd discovered that our pulse rifles were set their lowest power, a charge that would stun but not kill. Nothing we did could increase the power back to maximum.

Didn't matter, though. One by one we were disarmed and recaptured, then forced to march back to the encampment we'd come from. The men in the unit were noticeably more beaten up than the females, I'd noticed, though the one who had taken me out with a flying fucking tackle hadn't been all that gentle about it. The worst injury, to a private named Benson, was a concussion and a badly strained knee, and the aliens had shocked us all by actually treating him. There were four of them, all in the seven foot range. Four that had taken out a heavily armed and experienced sixteen-soldier squad in ten minutes.

The process repeated itself, over and over. On any random day they would slip into the jungle, leaving our modified pulse rifles behind. Whether we chose to stay or head out, we'd come to learn that attack was imminent. And time and familiarity with our captors made us finally realize that they weren't the ones who would hunt us after that first trial run; it would always be a band of smaller ones. Noticeably clumsier. Prone to mistakes that meant that sometimes one of us would get lucky and get a shot off.

"It's a game," Reece announced one day as we sat around the fire, nursing the wounds of the most recent attack. "Like paintball, see? And we're always the home team."

"Tell that to my fucking ribs," Carter, lying on his back, had groaned.

But Reece had been right, somewhat. It wasn't a game; we were being used as training aids for predatory extraterrestrials who enjoyed the hunt and chase. Tended by keepers who provided us with meat and watched over us to ensure we didn't wander off when they didn't want us to. Those keepers would disappear once the younger ones were situated and ready for the experience of hunting _oomans_, as they called us. The keepers presided over the playing field, each of the larger, and apparently older and more experienced predatory aliens responsible for four of us. They kept an eye out, made sure we weren't beaten too badly, and gathered up any strays, herding them back to the camp when the hunt was over.

Like me. Our squad had switched strategies, evolving our approach in an attempt to escape this hellish Groundhog Day existence. Since I was the best runner we had, the others broke off into small groups to engage the enemy of the day, providing cover and distraction for me so I could slip off. The idea was that I could escape and sound the alarm, hopefully bringing the calvary down on these fucking bastard's heads.

I was getting better at it. My goal today had been to make it to the summit of the cliff I'd been climbing, in the hope that I could get a better lay of the land to help me pick a direction to head in the next time. _Unfortunately_, the dark-skinned bastard assigned to be my keeper was just a little bit better than me. Top it off, I suspected that he was wise to me, too. First foray I had attempted, I'd made it close to four clicks before he found me. Now he was doing it inside two. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was his 'special case' and because of that, he kept a closer eye on me than he did the other three he was responsible for. I hoped I was making his life as much of a living hell as he was making of mine.

I slipped on the loose rock underfoot, sending a cascade of scree down the steep trail ahead of me. Kept my balance, though. I didn't bother to turn around and look for my keeper; he was around somewhere. Watching. They had technology that was beyond my understanding, including the ability to cloak themselves, somehow bending light around their massive forms and pretty much becoming invisible to the human eye. He might be camouflaged, he might not. He might be following right behind me or somewhere off to either side. Fucker was elusive that way. Dead silent, too, when he wanted to be. It was frustrating because it made me feel like I was willingly heading back to camp under the pretense of a threat that didn't exist.

The trail leveled out some and I stepped off it, to the side. Time to make sure that my keeper hadn't already returned to camp, confident that I'd been properly trained like a good little dog and I would be along in short order. Under the pretense of catching my breath I scanned the treetops. This part of the path was just above the canopy, and the breeze was a relief from the suffocating, wet heat beneath it. I raised my face to the sun and slicked my hair back, lifting it off my damp neck.

There was a low growl to my right and I stilled for just a second, then continued to fan my hand-held ponytail. Like the rest of the unit, I'd become familiar with the vocalizations of our keepers, enough to differentiate their sounds from those of the jungle's native inhabitants. They had a language, an aggressive and angry-sounding jumble of clicks and growls and grunts, with occasional clear consonants. There was a pecking order, too. The one growling at me right now ranked either at the top of the heap or in the number two spot.

Hard to tell which was boss, him or Loco Marrón, the brownest one. Loco was the keeper of Ramirez's group of four soldiers, Ramirez being one of the four females in the squad. The girl party had been deliberately broken up, one female in each group. We got preferential treatment, too, much to Ramirez and Guerrero's disgust. Two chicks I was careful not to piss off. Both were harder than any man in the squad, and their respective keepers' diligence in making sure that the younger predatory aliens didn't go too hard on them in particular was a bone of contention. The men were roughed up, and only if it got ugly enough would a keeper give a grunt or a bark that signaled the younger ones to knock it off. A female getting roughed up, however, resulted in direct, physical intervention. Ramirez had had the experience of Loco Marrón backhanding a younger alien-in-training off her when he decided to sit on her to subdue her. The sitter had probably had enough of being bitten even after he'd disarmed her; Ramirez was fucking ferocious in a fight. After sending the sitter flying, the big brown predator had extended a hand to Ramirez, helping her to her feet while he chortled in obvious amusement. She'd taken to calling him Crazy Brown, or in her language, Loco Marrón.

"Pyode amedha," my keeper grumbled from somewhere behind me with a voice like a glacier scraping over granite, and just as slow. "Ki'cte."

The other three could speak english, somewhat. Hell, Loco Marrón sometimes entertained himself with rough spanish just to piss Ramirez off. Mine, however, insisted on speaking his native tongue, if he bothered to even address me at all.

"Growl-click-growl," I snarked. Only I didn't actually _say_ it, I growled, clicked my cheek and tongue, then growled again. "Right back atcha." Stupid, stupid girl.

My short-tempered keeper took a step to my side, then grabbed the front of my fatigues one handed, lifted me off my feet, and spun then slammed me backward into the rocky cliff face. _Hard_. I clenched my teeth in a pained snarl as stars dotted my vision and my head pounded from the impact. The throbbing growl in my face didn't help, either, as I was held high enough so my keeper could shove his masked face right in front of mine.

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find-out-what-it-means-to-me," Carter's voice sang out.

Ah yes, their other delightful talent. They surreptitiously recorded our conversations, apparently analyzed them for content, then played them back when they wanted to communicate something to us that they wanted to be sure we understood. Seemed to me that fucking Carter was the source of most of the taunts they used. Fucking assclown that he was, he provided them a ton of content.

Satisfied the lesson had been driven home, he dropped me. Just opened his hand and stepped back without warning to give me an unexpected and unwelcome three-foot freefall. Not ready for it, I twisted my ankle under me when I hit and went to my ass with a squeal of pain.

I huffed for a moment to catch my breath, trying to clear the wonkiness out of my head, flexing my foot to find out how badly my ankle was injured. Fucking embarrassing as shit. Three hundred some-odd pounds of meat and muscle, and not a funny bone in him anywhere, unless he was mocking me.

He growled, then rocked his weight to one foot, lifting the other to poke at me with the horrendous claws on his toes. "Break's over, hermana," Ramirez's voice said. She and Guerrero referred to us other two girls as 'sister' in spanish. To hear that word being directed from my keeper to me was infuriating but I held my tongue, got my feet under me, and stood.

Unable to help myself, I muttered, "Sí, novio," then headed back for the path down. He actually trilled in amusement, letting me know that he'd understood my 'yes, sweetheart'.

My ankle twinged each time I put weight on it, and I struggled to keep my balance without trying to look like I was in pain. Fucking monster. I had to bite my lip when the loose footing made me dance a bit to keep my balance, adding insult to injury and further pissing my ankle off.

When we finally hit the jungle I had to sit on the ledge I'd been able to jump up to on my way up the cliff, easing myself down instead of jumping off it like I would have if I'd had two uninjured legs. All that was left was a couple mile hike through dense jungle, challenge enough when I was sound and not lame. I straightened my spine and headed out. No telling where my keeper had gone off to, but I wasn't stupid enough to try his patience and force him to reveal himself again. I simply forged my way through the dense foliage, not bothering to skirt the puddles of rancid water, working through deadfalls and snags with the determination and tenacity that was the trademark of my sheer, bull-headed stubbornness.

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><p>It was dusk by the time I limped my way into the encampment, freezing and gaping when I spotted my keeper on the far side of the night's bonfire in the clearing. Seeing him gave me pause and made me wonder to myself if I hadn't made the trek alone, if he hadn't been sitting here for four hours relaxing while I busted my ass to get here, thinking I was being shadowed the whole way.<p>

"What happened to you, hermana?" Ramirez asked, giving me a once-over as she rose from her log by the fire.

"Don't call me that," I snapped. She recoiled as I tromped past her, my fists clenched.

"Somebody's in a mood," Carter mocked.

"Shut. Up." I stood near the fire, glaring over the tall, flickering flames at the dark-skinned predator chatting with Loco Marrón on the far side of it.

"Flic. Don't do that," Patty whispered to me, the fourth female in our squad. I ignored her.

"Get some eats," our sergeant chimed in, his voice harder, bordering on a command.

I huffed and gave in. Discipline was everything, right? If it broke down we'd be in real trouble. The Sarge was a good guy trapped in this nightmare with us and trying to maintain his authority. I scanned and found a hunk of cooked meat set aside from tonight's meal. My portion. No doubt it was cold and greasy by now.

I cursed the black sonuvabitch alien as I limped stoically to the makeshift table and snatched the meat up in my dirty, scuffed hands, then set to devouring it. The rest left me alone for now. They'd seen the limp, they'd noticed the delay, they'd picked up on the animosity. No doubt they'd demand a debrief of the events of my day, the Sarge especially. Wanting to know how far I'd gotten this time, if I'd seen anything.

I turned to face the fire as I stood there chewing. Carter had a gash on his temple and a nice shiner working its way in below his left eye. Benson was flexing his right shoulder slowly, his opposite hand on it like it was hurting him. Sender was lying on his back in front of the log that Ramirez and Guerrero were sitting on. KC was nursing the ribs on his left side. Another day, another pounding. I wondered how much more we could take.

A lot, probably. I could see evidence of alien medicine on Carter's face, a shiny clear coating that went on as a liquid and hardened into a flexible bandage. No doubt the rest had been treated for their various injuries, too. If someone was hurt too badly they were usually held back and left unmolested at the camp during the next hunt. I had a bad feeling we were in this for the long haul.

"Need a spotter," I announced, gimping my way back toward the fire. Patty met my eyes, then nodded and rose from her spot. Everyone used spotters for toileting and bathing, never leaving sight of the others without having at least one member of the team in tow. Besides the damned keepers there was plenty in the jungle to worry about.

Patty followed me the short distance down the worn trail to the river, sitting on the bank while I worked off my heavy boots, then waded in fully dressed. Hell, I had to wash my clothes anyway, and this was as good a way as any to get the process started.

"What's with the limp?" Patty finally asked, after I came back up and slicked my hair back after ducking under, holding my breath for a good minute and feeling the current flowing strongly around and past me. The cool water felt good on my skin, and as I moved closer to her I started undressing to properly rinse my filthy and sweat-stained clothing.

"Fucking keeper. Picked me up and dropped me," I said irritably.

"That was nice of him," she said dryly, and I could see her smile in the bright moonlight. Thank god for the river; it was the only nearby place to escape the confinement of the canopy and ease the claustrophobic feeling the jungle could give you. "What'd you do to piss him off?" she wanted to know.

"Who says I pissed him off?"

"They don't put their hands on you unless you do or say something particularly stupid," Patty knew, referring specifically to our keepers, not the younger ones of their kind who were there to learn how to hunt us. "So which was it? Did you do something, or say something?"

"I might have mocked his clicking and growling," I admitted, shirt finally off. I worked it underwater, refusing to look at her.

"Oh, good one," she teased me.

"Here. Catch." I tossed her my sopped, balled-up shirt then started working my pants down to give them the same treatment. "How'd the hunt go?"

"Not too bad," she said, rising to her feet and shaking my shirt out. "We got four of them this time. Sarge thinks that breaking up into the smaller groups seems to work better. 'Specially when we separate the fours. How far'd you get?"

"Almost to the summit."

'The fours' referred to the breakdown of our squad amongst our keepers: three males and one female to each keeper. Once we figured that out, Sarge started breaking the fours up to keep the overseers busy monitoring their charges, who were sometimes spread out over a couple of miles of jungle. Multiple units that carefully broke up the responsibilities of each keeper, each picking a compass point and running hell-bent-for-leather in that direction to create distraction. Problem was, the younger aliens brought in to hunt us were busy doing just that, ambushing and bogging down different units by attacking them, keeping them from getting too far.

By 'got four', I knew that Patty was saying that four had been shot by our powered-down pulse rifles. Mock kill-shots, specifically. Our keepers were also the referees for the hunt, determining the severity of the injuries on both sides. If we managed to shoot a hunter and incapacitate him, he was taken out of the hunt, reducing the numbers against us.

"I got an idea," I said to Patty, then looked at her. She nodded, then held out her hands, ready to catch my fatigue pants. Other than that she didn't ask and I didn't tell. We'd all learned our lesson talking freely where we could be overheard by the keepers. They were most definitely not on our side in this thing.

I finally left the cool refreshment of the river, wearing nothing but a tank top and boy shorts. The limp was definitely worse outside the ankle support provided by my boots. I hoped the next hunt wasn't for awhile; as long as I was lame I couldn't achieve my primary objective: to scatter from the rest and search for a way out. It required speed and stealth, two things a bum ankle took away from me.

"Whyn'cha keep that foot in there awhile?" Patty suggested, and I decided that was a good idea. I found a nice flat rock near the edge of the water and settled down while she hung my shirt and pants and socks on a nearby branch. They wouldn't dry; nothing ever dried in the jungle. At the very least they'd go from soaking wet to damp, the best I could hope for.

"When'd my bane show up at camp?" I wanted to know. The keepers were the banes of our existence, and I was one of many who referred to mine as my bane. We had plenty of nicknames for them, none complimentary.

"Bout two minutes before you limped your way in."

I grunted and nodded. So he _had_ shadowed me, then. If Patty had told me he'd shown up three hours before I'd gotten there, I'd be pissed. And even more inclined to press my luck during the next hunt.

We stayed another half hour or so, then blindly made our way back down the path toward camp. The thought of slipping away in the dark never crossed our minds, since the keepers had proven themselves to be not only nocturnal, but very good in the dark.

Carter wolf whistled after I hung my stuff and went to stand near the fire again, and Sarge snapped at him to stow it. To be honest, I barely noticed. If there was an opportunity to say or do something offensive, stupid or obvious, Carter would be the first to say it or do it. I was still wearing damp underthings, though they weren't sexy by any stretch of the imagination. Especially not with the permanent sweat stains worked into the cotton. We were all grimy, even fresh from the river. There wasn't any soap around, much less laundry detergent. I wondered what would happen when our clothes finally surrendered to the jungle and just fell apart. Even worse was the lack of dry socks. We were all on alert for any sign of a rash or a fungus, most especially on our feet. Like me right now, most us had taken to walking around camp barefoot in an attempt to toughen up our soles in anticipation of the day when wearing boots was no longer an option.

The keepers were having what seemed to be a rather heated discussion on the far side of the fire and I refocussed my attention to watch. Loco Marrón versus my dark-skinned asshole keeper, what a surprise. This was why we couldn't figure out which one of them was in charge; it seemed like authority slipped back and forth between them.

Loco growled, then looked at me. His mask was more ornate than the others', carved with spirals and flourishes, though marked and pitted like it had seen a lot of years and a lot of use. He looked away and started around the fire and the circle of soldiers sitting around it, stopping in front of me. When I stared defiantly up at him he pointed to my leg. Ah, he'd noticed the limp. How nice.

"Ankle's wonky," I informed him, being deliberately passive-aggressive in my vagueness. Their grasp of the english language, while commendable, was nowhere near fluent. I knew a word like 'wonky' would go right over his head.

"Sit," he said on a growling exhalation. I sighed and gave in, Ramirez and Guerrero making room for me on the log, and Loco followed me, then sank into a crouch in front of me. Being slightly taller than my keeper, his crouch pretty much put him just above my face level from my seat on the thick tree trunk.

And speaking of the asshole, here he was, broadcasting tension as he deliberately closed in while Loco's huge, hot hand wrapped around my calf to lift my leg. I glared up at my keeper as he paused next to Loco and growled, letting the sound end in a low rumble. Still holding my leg, Loco looked at him and said something that started another back and forth. Not funny, and I didn't want to be sitting in the middle of it with my leg in Loco's steadily tightening hand.

He relented, carefully letting my leg back down then rising to his feet. He chuffed and gestured dismissively at me, a fling of his arm, then turned and stalked off. My keeper watched him go, then took his place, assuming a crouch and taking me by the calf. I held myself rigid and stayed quiet a moment, taking in his heat, his size, the faint whiff of coffee rolling off him while he ignored everything but the ankle he'd screwed up for me. From experience I knew that if he reeked like a Starbucks it meant that he was in a foul mood; the barest hint of his coffee smell meant that he wasn't feeling particularly temperamental. For the moment.

"Hola, novio," I said quietly, daring to put a little venom in my tone. Ramirez nudged me with her elbow.

"You named him _sweetheart_?" Guerrero asked, leaning around Ramirez to look at me, her expression incredulous.

"No, that's not his name," I said, then hissed when he started manipulating my foot. His touch, remarkably, was gentle, his huge clawed hands rough and callused and backed by immense strength.

"Okay, taking bets!" Carter announced. "I say Flic's gonna be the first one to fuck one of these guys." A few others shouted him down and told him to shut up and he leered at me stupidly before subsiding.

"If I was gonna give him a name," I said flatly, "It would be the first thing I always say when I see him."

"Yeah? What's that?" Guerrero asked.

"Aw fuck." The keeper attached to my leg actually looked up and trilled in amusement before going back to torturing me. "See, he knows."

"Knew your name for him would involve the word fuck somehow. Just proves my point," Carter said smugly.

"You know...why don't you spend your time trying to figure out how to get your own dick in your mouth, Carter?" I snapped. "Maybe it'll take your mind off sex for five minutes."

"Knock it off," the Sarge snapped, his tone flat with warning, his dark face shiny with sweat as he delivered the stink-eye to Carter, then me, before glancing at my keeper.

"Damn. If I could do that I wouldn't be in this man's army," Carter muttered. "Never woulda left my bedroom in my mama's house."

"They'd hafta surgically remove your mouth from-"

"Enough, I said!" Sarge barked, raising his voice and cutting Benson off.

There was some fading snickering, then my keeper did something to my ankle that hurt like hell. "Yow, _hey_!" I yelped, trying to pull away. He held tight to my calf and made that ticking noise, then looked off to the side. Loco Marrón was still standing nearby and my torturer said something to him, then shook his huge head.

_Oh god, they're going to put me down like a wounded farm animal_, was my first thought. The sudden tension that rippled through my squad-mates told me they were thinking the same thing. It was all the fault of that fucking dark-skinned keeper, I thought, and glared darkly at him as he continued to converse with Loco Marrón.

I could do something, I thought. Last act of defiance. Create a distraction. He vastly outweighed me and his balance was unshakable, but just right now he'd lowered his center of gravity to squat in front of me. If I leapt at him, caught him off-guard and knocked him backwards-

"Stand down, soldier," Sarge said quietly. His words not only distracted me from my thoughts and made me look at him; they attracted the attention of my keeper. Aw Fuck was certainly living up to the name I'd given him, as he looked from the Sarge to me, then trilled, let go of my leg, and chucked me roughly under the chin as he rose powerfully to his full height.

"Hunt in mor-ning. Be-fore light," Loco announced to everyone in general. English words with more than one consonant were broken into separate words by him and his slow, careful speech, forcing us to listen attentively. Lifting his massively muscled arm, he pointed to Benson and said, "You," then Sender, "you," then KC, "you," then me, "you. Stay." Meaning, the four of us were granted a reprieve for the next hunt, given a pass to remain in camp and nurse our wounds. It solidified my suspicion that they were making an effort to keep us alive, intending to use us as training target dummies for a good long while.

Aw Fuck barked something angrier-sounding than usual at Loco, gesturing at me. Loco fired back. The other two keepers, as was their habit, stayed the hell out of the dispute. Aw Fuck stepped away from me, he and Loco Marrón heading back around for the opposite side of the fire, still hissing and clicking in disagreement.

"I think Carter might have a point, hermana," Ramirez said, leaning over to whisper in my ear. "The black one has the hots for you. Watch your back."

I twisted to point my glare at her. "The _fuck_, Ramirez?" I demanded in a heated whisper. She held up a hand to placate me, her eyes quickly sweeping our squad-mates, then checking the location of the four keepers.

"No offense," she breathed. "I think Loco's got his sights set on me, too. The Green Meanie on Guerrero. Reddy Eddie on chica blanca. I suppose it doesn't only get lonely in the jungle for _us_, compadre."

"Keep me out of your sick fantasies," I snapped, still keeping my voice low so that only she could hear me. She shrugged, closing her dark eyes and pressing her lips together as she did, telling me my opinion didn't bother her.

"He followed you and chica blanca to the river before," she whispered. _White girl_ was Patty. Didn't come much whiter than Irish. I was accepted into Ramirez and Guerrero's tough-girl clique probably for my café au lait mulatto coloring more than anything else, since Patty was just as capable a soldier as I was. Plus Patty had the bright blue eyes while I had the greenish-brown hazel that bordered on acceptable, as far as the Latino girls were concerned.

"So?" I demanded.

She shrugged again. "He follows you everywhere."

"Maybe I'm more trouble than Nubby, Calm and Tox," I pointed out, the three male responsibilities of my particular keeper. Ramirez snorted and smiled.

"You're not. Trust me," she said flatly.

True, damn her. The minute the words had come out of my mouth I'd regretted them. Nubby was a fucking two hundred fifty pound monster, capable of carrying a mini-gun through the jungle. Calm was our munitions expert, placid on the surface and probably akin to a serial killer beneath. And Tox was our sniper, an out and out madman. I'd probably been lumped in with the three most lethal males in our squad, I suddenly realized. All Aw Fuck's responsibility, instead of spread out amongst all four keepers. I supposed, as I thought about it, that said something for Aw Fuck's capabilities then, didn't it?

"He tried to break my fucking back," I said to Ramirez, angrier now.

"Probably pissed and thinking you were trying to run away."

"Well, _duh_."

"Look at it from his point of view, hermana."

"You mean _your_ point of view."

"I think it's one and the same. Just sayin'." With that, Ramirez turned away from me on the log and leaned into Guerrero, leaving me pissed off and stewing in my own juices.

_Bitch_, I thought, unkindly. My eyes lifted over the flames and I saw the whole of Aw Fuck's expressionless mask, meaning he might be looking at me. Argument with Loco Marrón over, apparently. I stewed, wondering what it had been about. Me, obviously, but what about me? I reviewed the sequence of events in my mind, all conjecture and speculation on my part.

What didn't sit well with me was the fact that there were four females in our squad, and four whatever-they-were. Each keeper, all clearly male, was given responsibility for one female. What if Ramirez was right? They were aliens, living on foreign soil, away from females of their own kind. And their concessions regarding the four females in our squad were obvious to everyone. Indisputable. I couldn't help but wonder, if I were male instead of female, if my little twisted ankle would qualify me for a break from the next hunt. Carter with his bashed-in face wasn't given a break. If my face was as busted up as his, would I be sidelined? I had a sneaking suspicion that yes, I would.

"So are you saying," I whispered, leaning into Ramirez, "that if we girls play our cards right, we might find a weakness?"

"I like what you're thinking, hermana. Talk to me," Ramirez hissed back, and Guerrero leaned in closer to hear.

"I was thinking...if we change the line-up of our squads, put all the girls in one group..." I said.

"They would follow _us_," Guerrero breathed. "Not the guys."

"Who's the fastest besides me?" I asked.

"Tox. Not acceptable," Ramirez said quickly, dismissing him. "Fucking Carter. I don't know if I want to put my life in his hands. At least not until you give him a direction to run in."

"Can't yet. Fucker didn't let me get to the summit." I'd climbed the cliff to try and get a sense of which direction would be best, though it hadn't been a guarantee I'd see anything other than the endless jungle. We'd been dropped in by chopper and the best the Sarge could tell me was to check out the west. Aw Fuck had intervened and stopped me from being able to properly scout the lay of the land from a high vantage point. I'd been counting on making it next time. Now I was sidelined from the next hunt with a bum ankle, thanks to him.

_Stand down, soldier_, my mind said, echoing Sarge's words. I'd mouthed off at Aw Fuck. Had I known that while he might choose to not converse in english it didn't mean that he didn't understand the language when he heard it...lesson learned, I told myself, and deflated. I'd underestimated my adversary. Time to step up my game.


	2. Chapter 2

It's easy to post regular updates when the story has already been written! :/

Disclaimer: For Mature readers. Story contains bad language, a good amount of gore, and an attempted rape somewhere down the line. Predator(s) does not belong to me but the characters and plot are mine. I'm not making any money off publishing this little ditty, but I'll take payment in the form of reviews!

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><p>My ankle was killing me. I stared at the roof of the tent, lying on my back while the sounds of the night creatures filled my ears. The jungle was loud as hell at night and all of us were certainly used to it by now. So used to the din that when it fell silent you woke up instantly, all nerves on edge. Usually it signaled the passage of something, a jungle cat or some other predator...native or alien. They did their hunting at night, our keepers. In the morning there would be a fresh kill or four hung on their end of the clearing, skinned, gutted and dripping. We'd understood from the beginning that that could be any of us; the symbolism wasn't lost just because it was a deer or a tapir.<p>

I had to move. Lying here was killing me as much as my ankle. It throbbed and burned, pulsing in time with my heartbeat. It needed, I decided, a dunk in the cool river to calm it down.

I sat up, then rolled quietly to my feet. Since no one else in the tent said anything, I knew they were sleeping. Fuck it. If I get eaten by a jaguar, I get eaten. I wasn't about to wake any of the girls up to accompany me, since they all had to get up in a few hours and participate in the hunt. Me, I had all day to relax, take a nap, recover from my midnight stroll, whatever.

I slipped from the tent and stood outside it a moment, letting my eyes adjust and see what they would. Very little sun, moon or starlight filtered down to the jungle floor, but given long enough, the human eye could acclimate to some pretty deep darkness. Helped that I was intimately familiar with my surroundings, and as I started to pick out landmarks I started to move. Sarge's group's tent, then Carter's. Someone was snoring loud enough to wake the dead in there. Must be another one of those things humans could acclimate to, since I couldn't imagine trying to sleep through all that racket.

The path to the river was cool and damp under my feet, and I moved slowly and carefully, but steadily. My ankle felt stiff, like it had swollen and locked up in the few hours of sleep I'd managed to grab. On the face of it, a relatively minor injury. In our current environment and situation, it probably ranked right up there as one of the worst. Couldn't keep my boots on for support; because of the dampness I'd risk a lovely foot rot. Rendering me immobile meant I wasn't going to get very far, a necessity for my squad's possible escape, possible rescue, definite moral boost and continued survival.

The river. I paused, still under the canopy, and stared, keeping my senses open while at the same time, admiring the view. It glittered and hissed under the moon and stars, streaming past its banks at a good clip. It reflected the sky's light, creating a white, ethereal haze around itself, like it was glowing.

Limping forward, I found the flat rock I'd sat on with Patty, and eased my foot and ankle into the cool, flowing water with a sigh of relief. The trip back was going to be hell, I realized belatedly. My eyes would adjust to the light here and I was going to be effectively blind when I stepped back under the canopy. That was gonna suck.

I had just started to relax, leaning back on my elbows and closing my eyes as I listened to the night, when I heard a rumbling purr, then felt the impact of something heavy hitting the ground nearby. The usually loud darkness went silent in an instant.

One time I'd gone to this small, rinky-dink backyard zoo in Pennsylvania when I was a kid. Couldn't believe it when, as my family made its way further in, there were chain-link enclosures containing tigers and lions. Full grown, out in the woods of Pennsylvania. I'd stopped in my tracks and stared, and heard the same sound that had just come out of the jungle: a deep-throated throbbing rumble, coming from a massive orange and black striped tiger standing at the fence. My older brothers had run to it in excitement and it had rubbed its cheek against the chain-link then turned away, lifted its tail, and hosed them down with a spray of stinking urine just as they came in range.

The memory brought a smile to my lips as I turned my head toward the sound. Similar to a five hundred pound tiger, what had issued that warm, masculine sounding purr was deadly and powerful. The dark-skinned predator stepped into the reflected, dappled light cast from the sky to the river and out again, moving with quiet, agile grace. The tiger had hid its musculature under a loose pelt with magnificent, striking markings; this predator's build was on display, each and every muscle clearly defined beneath a tough hide that bore similar, but more muted markings. Black and grey, lighter and creamier under the arms, on the belly and palms. Similar to a human build, the musculature of his body was familiar but hugely exaggerated: trapezius flaring from neck to massive shoulders, bulging biceps and triceps of his arms. Huge pectorals, each bigger than my head, tapering to the ripple of abdominal muscles and a narrow waist, the cream of his hide dappled with speckles of darker color and what looked like scars. His quadriceps, the four big muscles of the thighs, made his upper legs like tree trunks, fat and powerful, decorated with smudgy markings of darker color.

"Hola, novio," my own voice greeted me as he paused ten feet away.

I nodded. "Aw Fuck."

Trilling, he resumed his approach until he was standing next to me, then he stopped and eased down into a crouch at my side, masked face tilted downward as he scanned my leg, seeing my foot in the water. He was, I noticed, pretty much naked. The keepers wore armor, pitted and scaled, a dull gunmetal grey. The kind of armor that protected specific body parts but still allowed full freedom of movement: a partial breastplate, greaves and spaulders, shin guards, codpiece, mask. All separate and not interconnecting with each other, fastened with straps and clamps. Just right now, Aw Fuck was wearing nothing but his gauntlets, mask, and a loincloth. Rolling casual, as it were. Apparently they were permitted to dress down for the off-hours.

He shifted beside me, placing his left elbow on top of his thigh and holding his hand out, turning it palm-up, fingers extended. I stared at his hand, noting the absence of things I hadn't ever taken conscious notice of before, but now that they were missing...

No more tightly fitting, darkly colored fingerless glove. No more knuckleduster rings adorning the heavy knuckles across the back of his hand as well as the knuckles in the middle of each ungodly huge finger. His palm was a lighter shade of black than the back of his hand, the creases dark cracks. At the base of each finger was a well-defined callus, further proof -as if I needed any- that this creature was no stranger to hard work.

The long fingers wiggled impatiently and I heard a quiet rumble, something similar to a growl but lacking its threat. I'd missed the how of it but I found myself sitting upright, no longer leaning back on my elbows. He wanted something. This gesture had become associated in my mind with the pulse rifle, Aw Fuck's way of telling me to hand it over. Not only was I currently unarmed; I, like him, was barely dressed. I mulled it over, wondering what he could possibly want, then it occurred to me and my eyes skipped from his extended hand to his mask.

"My ankle?" I asked tentatively.

He grunted, almost a snort, and I blinked at the 'well, _duh_' implication in the sound. Then he nodded.

I considered a moment, staring at the eyes of the mask. This time I couldn't pick up any hint of coffee-smell, though I imagined he was close enough that I could feel his heat. It meant, I realized, that this was probably the most easy-going and calm mood I'd ever seen Aw Fuck in. He was perfectly capable of lunging at me and grabbing my leg; as a matter of fact, I almost expected him to do that. Instead he remained utterly still and waited, hand proffered palm-up.

Moving carefully under his scrutiny, I lifted my foot from the water and eased myself into a partial turn on my stone seat, leaning back on my hands and tilting my hips to raise my leg up higher. I tensed as my keeper's huge left hand wrapped around my calf, his right one going to my foot as he began touching. His grip was as I remembered: hot and firm, his hands as hard as the rest of him looked. My foot looked comparatively tiny and pale as he pressed his palm to my sole, wrapped his fingers over my arch, and began to gently manipulate my ankle. I hissed in pain, trying to snatch my leg back, and he stilled, masked visage sweeping from my foot to my face.

There was a quiet sound that started building, lost at first beneath the cacophony of the night creatures and insects. My eyes widened as I stared at him, part of me straining to hear and understand what I was hearing, what it was, where it was coming from. Sounded, to be honest, like a distant engine. Sort of a droning. Too low pitched to be a chopper; maybe a plane?

It _was_ a plane, I decided, and automatically looked away from what I certainly should have been paying close attention to, the fucking predator that had me by the leg. I cast my eyes to the sky above the river, searching for lights, tension zipping up my spine as I debated my next move. I had to signal somehow. Had to get out in the open...

The sound built and grew, a throbbing, steady drone. But it wasn't coming from the sky. Keeping my face turned up, I slowly slid my eyes back to my keeper's mask, narrowing my gaze on the slits that covered his eyes. It was _him_, I realized.

He lowered his attention back to my foot and continued right where he'd left off as I continued to stare. He had the ability to be remarkably still, freezing like a statue. With no perceptible breathing, even. I didn't like it; it was creepy.

The sound continued to intensify, taking on a life of its own as he ran the pad of his thumb down the front of my ankle. He did it again, down the right side then the left. Two fingers along either side of my achilles tendon all while he emitted that steady, measured throbbing from somewhere in his chest. It wasn't particularly loud, but it had the power to block out all other sound, filling my ears, resonating inside me as I tuned into it and listened. I could feel his touch but was more detached from it, not so focused on what he was doing. Here and there when he did something that hurt I would flinch in reaction, a twitched response from pained nerves.

When the sound abruptly stopped I blinked and jerked my head, snapping out of it. My keeper was easing my foot back down, then he rocked his weight back from the balls of his feet to his heels and stood. He stepped past me and out of eyeshot behind me.

It was a gravelly purr, I realized belatedly. Only one much more evolved than a cat's. A feline's purr existed to soothe the cat; I had a sneaking suspicion that this creature's purring had the ability to hypnotize and soothe someone other than the creature making it. Worked for me.

My ankle ached a little bit and I looked at it. Felt like someone had been messing around with it, twisting and pulling and flexing it. I knew Aw Fuck had done it, but for the life of me I couldn't actually remember it happening. I had to really apply myself to go through what had happened in steps, piecing together what I saw and felt. It brought me to the conclusion that the joint felt much better now, since Aw Fuck's prodding and poking really hadn't hurt all that much.

I pulled my legs beneath me and shifted to stand, then collapsed back onto my butt with a hiss of pain. Okay, ankle's not so good. There was a low rumble, a brush of heat, and Aw Fuck's huge hand on my head, pressing me down as he strode past me and into the river. Telling me to sit still, knock it off? I wasn't sure. Again, though, I sensed a total lack of aggression in him.

He went into the river with his usual confidence, huge legs kicking up splashes as he strode out into deeper water like he was expecting it should part for him at any moment and allow him to just march across. The gauntlets were gone, I realized, watching his arms swing with his strides. Then the water hit his hips, his waist, then he went under. I watched and waited as the river swept away all evidence of his passage, as the sounds of the night resumed.

_The knives..._

I twisted on the rock, my eyes searching the ground behind me. If he'd taken off the gauntlets, that meant they were probably somewhere behind me. The right one housed the huge blades, stored inside them on the back of his forearm until he did something that made them spring out over the back of his hand. I didn't have any particular thought in mind as to what I would do with them if I found them, but weapons were weapons.

A careful look didn't reveal them. He wasn't stupid; none of the keepers were. He'd hidden them, then, while my back was turned.

My ears picked up a discordant splash from the river, something different from its usual sounds, and I looked. Aw Fuck had re-emerged and was heading back my way. The brief opportunity to search for his weapons had passed. I casually slid my injured ankle back into the cold water and held my ground as he forged toward me with the same powerful surges he'd used to enter the water.

He was unmasked, I noticed, now that he was facing me. Even from a distance I could see the amber glow of his gaze. These predatory aliens were ugly, yes, but like the rest of my squad I'd gotten past my initial revulsion and terror that their faces inspired. Though their bodies were humanoid, bipedal, two arms, four fingers and thumb, they were crab-like in the face. Spider-like. The mouthparts moved constantly, restlessly.

They had no _face_, per-se, and so were incapable of human expression. They had huge foreheads that looked armor plated, ridged with bone, tipped with spines. Behind that was where the fat strands of fleshy black hair started, dangling down to their elbows like an octopus' arms, decorated with rings and bands. Below the forehead was a thick, bony, heavy brow that overhung their deep-set eyes. Bifocal vision, two eyes on the front of the head that moved in tandem, thank god. A googly-eyed chameleon looking thing would have only been that much more off-putting.

And below the eyes was the fearsome mouth, sort of an outer one and an inner one. The outer one was topped by two fangs just below the eyes. They were somewhat mobile, but not nearly as much as the lower fangs. Those bad boys pointed straight upward, bone white, each as long as a finger and sharp at the tip. They were attached to a mandible that framed the lower jaw on either side but were independent of it, able to flex and spread, pulling the cheek flaps wide enough to show their insides, turning the lower fangs sideways so their tips pointed at each other with probably a good thirty-inch spread between them. The inner mouth was also topped by two sharp teeth, with a relatively small chin and equally sharp teeth below. Clear carnivores. We just hoped that human beings weren't on the menu.

His loincloth was in his hand, I realized suddenly. _His loincloth was in his hand_. I stared for a few seconds, then averted my eyes and lowered my chin. Definitely male, no doubt about that. Unless their females sported a bat and a pair of baseballs? No twig and berries here.

He splashed to the bank and rumbled quietly as he strode past me and I turned my face away. Did not see...did not see...

Then he was behind me somewhere, probably retrieving his gauntlets and mask. Hopefully making himself _decent,_ for god's sake. Had any of the guys in my squad just pulled that on me I would have punched them in the face.

Then I thought about what Ramirez had told me, that Aw Fuck had the hots for me. Could that possibly be true? Had he followed me here? Was he sort of _displaying_ himself to me? Or had he just happened to come here for a bath and found me sitting here already? Nursing my wounded ankle, no thanks to him. If he thought he was about to get lucky he had another think coming.

There was a chuff from behind me that I ignored. He was standing, I was sitting. If I turned around, would I have his dangly bits in my face? Not gonna chance that, no way. I could hear him moving around as I stayed frozen on my rock, then he issued a low growl. Heard that one before. That was his '_I'm warning you..._' sound. I made full use of my privileges as a female and kept still. The girls had learned that, when in doubt, it was better not to move than to make the wrong move. Were I male there would be no quarter given. Disobey and get roughed up, period.

Aw Fuck moved around me, into my line of sight. I almost deflated in relief when I saw the loincloth was back in place. Gauntlets and mask, too. He bent over me, reached for my front, then hesitated, talon-tipped fingers spread. Usually he grabbed me by the shirtfront. Just right now I was wearing a tank top with very little front to grab. His hand moved and I recoiled as he closed it around my throat, so big he only encircled my neck with his thumb on one side, two fingers on the other. I had to lift my chin anyway as he shifted his grip, then used my neck to pull me to my feet. Not a pleasant experience; I much preferred the uniform grab.

I gasped and sputtered, instinctively raising my hands and grabbing at his wrist to prevent him from pulling my head off. Setting me on my feet he released me, then motioned toward the dark path back toward the camp. I hesitated, for once seeing his chest without the breastplate covering it, and honestly and truly stunned by the sight. Dear god, he was huge. And ripped. Massive pectoral muscles, a clearly defined and sculpted six-pack made of keg cans. Shoulders the size of basketballs. Human-like, but definitely not human.

He grunted, becoming more annoyed the longer I just stood there stupidly staring at him. "_Move_, soldier!" Sarge's voice barked out, an angry command.

"I'm movin', I'm movin'," I muttered, instantly stirred into action by that voice and tone. Had I been dead asleep I would have responded to Sarge's orders, so this was an effective way of forcing my compliance.

I shuffled from the water, my eyes wide as I belatedly remembered that I'd blown my night vision by hanging out at the river. In front of me was a wall of black. It slowed my already slow pace, and again I heard my keeper's low growl of irritated warning. I stepped out on faith, lengthening my stride, then hissed as my ankle shot a bolt of pain when I stepped on an invisible root and twisted it. Great. Now I was terrified I would hurt it even worse.

"Should have stayed in bed," I muttered to myself, too late.

Aw Fuck nudged my spine right between my shoulderblades with a knuckle. It wasn't gentle but it wasn't forceful enough to knock me onto my face, either. I'd seen them do that to the males in my squad often enough. I shuffled faster, favoring my injury and walking blind, then my tormentor grabbed me by my upper left arm and tugged me back.

"Ow!" I barked, startled and more than a little afraid. "Would you make up your-what's that?" I squawked, sensing something just in front of my face but unable to see a damned thing. I squeaked, literally let out a girlish beep as something touched my nose, then I batted at it instinctively. And connected with something hard and hot. His hand, I realized. I'd just taken a whack at a keeper.

He chortled, the sound revealing more amusement than I'd ever heard from Aw Fuck, then he moved around me, still holding me with a monstrous hand so big it completely encircled my upper arm. He slid his hand to my wrist and pulled it out from my body, and I felt a simultaneous brush against my belly and side, then I was hoisted off my feet. I flailed a moment in panic, folding as my weight was forced onto my stomach and I pitched forward, searching for something to grab with my right hand. It closed on something smooth and warm and fleshy, firmly anchored but with some give to it. I heard and felt a rumble before I was jostled and I let go, placing my hand below my precariously-pitched weight and touching rough heat. Sonuvabitch had picked me up, I realized. Tucked his hot, humongous shoulder into my belly and lifted me off my feet.

The hand on my wrist let go and I felt him press his gauntleted forearm across the backs of my calves to pin me in place. Then I felt him step and turn beneath me and start walking.

Wow. Just wow. Aw Fuck was transporting me back to camp in a fireman's carry. I hoped like hell that no one else was awake and around to see this shit.

Hands free, I pressed them against his back to prop myself up, still staring blindly around me. I could feel the bumps and pebbling of his sorta reptilian hide beneath my hands, and below that, the slide of tough muscle in his back as he walked. This close, my nose was filled with the smell of him, faded after his dip in the river with the added fishy tang that rode all of us. I always craved coffee when I got a whiff of one of the keepers, since that was what their scent made me think of. With a dash of vanilla and cinnamon thrown in. And now, a side of gefilte fish.

I was able to make out the trees and I knew we were at the edge of the encampment. The fire in the pit had been allowed to die low but it still cast enough flickering orange light to allow me to see.

"Okay you can put me down now, thanks," I hissed, keeping my voice low so as not to attract anyone's attention. He ignored me and kept walking, fairly cruising into the clearing with long, smooth strides that made no sound. I pressed myself more upright and tried to slide down, but his forearm kept my legs pinned. "That's good, now," I said, trying again. "Here's fine." Face down from seven feet off the ground was definitely unnerving. If he was planning to deploy me like I was an Airborne paratrooper I was going to perform an epic faceplant.

We passed one tent then another, rounding to the front of the girls' tent before he came to a stop. He sank into a crouch and let go of my legs, shrugging to shift me forward. I found the dirt with my feet and staggered back a bit, getting my balance with a few hops on my good leg and favoring my sore ankle. Aw Fuck cocked his head, forearms on his wide-spread thighs, his clawed hands tucked close to his body.

"Thanks," I said, a little unsure. He motioned toward the tent's entrance with his head, then rose and walked off. "You're welcome," I muttered under my breath, then gimped my way back to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Don't own Predator(s) and I'm not publishing this for financial gain. *sigh*

Enjoy!

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><p>Early the next morning when it was still dark, I woke to the commotion of soldiers rousing each other with alarm calls, pouring from their tents to pick up the weapons piled near the fire pit. I stood off to the side and watched. The keepers had left a dozen pulse rifles, one for each soldier participating in the hunt. Those of us to be left behind remained unarmed.<p>

Sarge hesitated as they formed up, waiting until I met his eyes. He gave me a hard look, passed a glance around the camp, then returned his gaze to me again. A hard stare then a curt nod, and he turned away, shouting orders at the others.

"S'up with that?" KC asked, stepping beside me to watch them break into groups and head out.

"Not sure," I admitted. We listened until the sound of our squad's passage faded into the dark.

"Got a bad feeling about this one," KC commented quietly.

I snorted and finally looked at him. "You always got a bad feeling," I pointed out dismissively.

"Night hunt. Can't be good."

There _was_ that, I had to admit.

A low, gruff bark made us turn around. Aw Fuck leapt down fifteen feet from where he'd been clinging to the trunk of a monstrous mahogany tree that was cloaked in moss and draped with vines. KC and I stood our ground as he stalked toward us, fully armed and armored. He came to a stop off to my side and growled, then pointed to me, then back to the camp.

"Yeah. I know," I told him, taking his gestures to mean that I was to stay at the site.

He growled and closed in to grab up the front of my fatigues in one huge fist, jerking me to my toes. He lowered his impassively masked face closer to mine and pointed again with his free hand, this time at the ground beside me.

"Got it," I squeaked. His message was emphatic and unmistakeable: _Stay here_. _I mean it_.

He rumbled and eased back slowly from me, then let go of my shirt. He glanced at KC, back to me, then turned away and strode into the forest, keying something on his left gauntlet that cast a blue electrical sizzle over his form before he disappeared in a watery ripple.

"That fucking thing maybe hates you," KC said in the silence that followed. Always the optimist, our KC.

I ignored him to stare after Aw Fuck, absentmindedly smoothing the front of my uniform while thinking on what had just transpired. One thing for sure, I was getting to the sonuvabitch. He was freaking unbelievable in the jungle, a shadow...but I was on to something, wasn't I? I kept slipping the net. I was making him have to work for a living. To the point where he'd been compelled to swing by the camp and make sure I hadn't already flown the coop, then to make it a point to personally let me know what his expectations were for me today.

I wondered if he was going to be worried. If it was possible that I would be in the back of his mind all day while he monitored the hunt, wondering if when he returned to base camp he'd find it deserted. Maybe not deserted, maybe just me gone, rabbited in the opposite direction as fast and far as I could go.

Abruptly, I turned from KC and gimped across the clearing, heading for the racks where the keepers were drying the skins of the animals they killed for food. I searched around a bit and came up with a few scraps leftover from one of the older skins, then I plopped down and used them to bind my wonky ankle. I wasn't going to try and run off; it simply wouldn't be possible. But I was gonna fuck with my keeper all the same.

I tested the wrap and was pleased at the support it provided me. I wasn't going jogging anytime soon but it did lessen the discomfort and helped to steady my stride. Satisfied, I turned back toward the tents.

"What's goin' on?" Benson asked, in a chiding, sing-song voice. His left arm was secured against his chest with a harness of hide to protect and immobilize his injured shoulder. KC and Sender were flanking him, all of them focused on me.

"Nothin'," I said, matching his coy tone.

"Doesn't look like nothin'," Sender said gruffly, spoiling the childish game.

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking," KC said, then scowled and asked, "...are you?"

"Just going walkies," I assured him, then started forward and pushed through them. Relentless, all three trailed me.

"Problem," KC objected. "Four of them. And one of them hates your guts already."

"You can't do this, Flic. None of us can," Sender insisted. "My back's killing me. Benson tore something in his shoulder. KC's got busted ribs."

"_I_ didn't tear something in my shoulder," Benson snapped, annoyed. "I was grabbed by the fucking wrist and _flung_ ten feet into a fucking tree, that's what happened."

"I'm not asking you to come with me," I said. "Stay here."

"And what happens when one of them comes back and finds you missing?" Sender demanded. I shrugged.

"They'll have to come find me," I answered.

"Oh, that's brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?" he snarked, mocking me as he smacked his forehead theatrically. "And what about us? You think that one's going to come back, see you're missing, then just go traipsing after you? Fuck you and the rest of the women in this squad, Flic. I'm getting shitting tired of being a punching bag while you four get treated with kid gloves."

"Hey...yeah," KC agreed, as if it hadn't dawned on him what the keepers would do to them until Sender went and brought it up.

It honestly hadn't dawned on me, either, I was ashamed to admit. It was entirely possible that our keepers would figure Sender, Benson and KC knew where I'd gone, and they wouldn't be gentle with their demands for the answer. They might even be punished for letting me go when, clearly, it was within the power of the three of them to stop me.

"You're right," I admitted, and saw my three squad-mates deflate visibly. Aw Fuck might have manhandled me into injuring my ankle, but the keepers weren't half as rough on the girls as they were on the guys. Whether it was due to their respect for the female sex or something else, I didn't know. Maybe they were well aware that we couldn't take the kind of punishing treatment the men could, despite the fact that we fought just as hard.

This wasn't a game. _Damn him_, I thought, of Aw Fuck. His recent gentle treatment of me had minimized the level of threat I perceived in my mind, a dangerous thing. To the point where I'd actually thought it would be funny to go for a casual hike through the jungle for the sole purpose of making him have to come looking for me. There was a tactical element to my idea as well, the hope that my disappearance would pull him from monitoring the hunt and increase the odds that a team member or four could maybe slip surveillance because of it.

It was partly because of the stubborn in me. Had Aw Fuck not made it a point to swing by and emphatically order me with grunts and gestures to stay in the camp, it never would have crossed my mind to try and leave. Anyone who knew me could tell you that the most effective way of getting me to do something was to just tell me I couldn't do it. My parents liked to say that I'd never outgrown the 'Terrible Twos'.

Regrouping, I spent most of the day paying attention while pretending not to. This was my first missed hunt and I was curious as to what went on back at camp while the rest ran for their lives. Nothing, apparently. If there was a keeper here to mind things, he kept himself hidden. I had a feeling we were alone, for the most part. I mean really, you got four people with a busted up back, ankle, shoulder and ribs between them. Put us all together and maybe we made one functional human being.

For the most part we kept to ourselves and rested. Not a whole lot of discussion, zero joking around and absolutely no fun. We were all painfully aware of what was going on out there. The hunt. It was serious business and everyone on the injured reserve list waited and wondered if today was the day there would be a fatality in this seemingly non-lethal but painfully brutal game we were being forced to play.

The young hunters weren't armed and hand-to-hand was encouraged. Disarm the oomans and tackle them into submission. Granted, the young ones weren't the same size as our keepers, but two hundred plus pound aggressive beings still had the power to do some serious damage. Personally, I'd been tackled, thrown, and had my legs kicked out from under me. At the end of the day you might not be seriously injured but you were hurting. I'd been left with my ears ringing from an open-handed slap, had my eyes blackened, bruised my ribs. And this, I suspected, was even after the younger ones had had a briefing about taking it easy on the females before the start of the hunt. It was for sure that the male members of my squad were always left hurting, as if they had had to bear the brunt of the restraint shown to the females.

The purpose of this nightmare for the other side seemed to be to learn to hunt our kind. To track, to stalk, to confront, take damage and persevere in order to subdue. The young ones took particular delight in it if you put up a fight and had to be forced to a pin. There was a sort of ceremony about it, the challenge, the circling, the triumphant, loud roaring when you conceded defeat.

There was something to be said for the roaring. When you were creeping through the jungle, nerves jangling, weapon ready, senses on red alert, and that _sound_ shattered the air, it put you on notice. Somebody had just gone down; your team's been engaged. The hunt was on and it was anyone's guess who was next. When the roars resounded around you from different locations you had to fight the panic that tried to rise up and strangle you.

I supposed, as I sharpened the sturdiest, straightest meat-roasting sticks I'd managed to find, that none of us were ever going to be right in the head if we somehow managed to escape here. I couldn't imagine going back to reality, sitting at my stepmother's Thanksgiving table. Enjoying a quiet evening out on a dinner date. Hiking through the state park near my apartment. These predators would always be in the back of my mind. I would forever be wary of any flicker of movement in my peripheral vision, for the snap of a branch or the crunch of a leaf. For the odd motion of a nearby plant or tree, for the rapid, excited tapping they sometimes let out as they stalked.

No, we were probably all riding the crazy train about now, like the long deployment wartime combat vets I'd met. Forced to hone yourself to that razor's edge just to survive, you'll never re-acclimate to society life again. All it takes is a sound or a smell or even the _idea_ of danger to bring it all rushing back, to put you on red alert and give you an adrenaline high more intense than any junkie's fix. Part of me never wanted to leave this place, never wanted to be separated from my squad-mates, couldn't imagine life without them...and part of me couldn't wait to never see them again.

I kept myself busy while the boys lazed around. Washed everything in the girl's tent: clothing, blankets, everything. Got it all hung out in time for the heat of the day in a sunny patch near the river that caught a steady breeze off the water, hoping it would be dried out before dark. Whacked around at the spiderwebs in the tent with a palm frond, whisking it under the bunks and along the wooden framework and platform out front, sweeping out lizards and beetles, one snake and two or three colorful little frogs. Probably poisonous, my mind guessed. Anything pretty in the jungle was deadly as hell.

Straightened up the clearing, fixing the stones arranged in the circle that contained our cooking fire. Dragged over some wood in preparation. Moved the clothes and bedding around to help them fully dry and came back dragging more wood.

"Flic. Calm the fuck down, wouldya?" Sender snapped, coming to the front porch of his tent wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, his hair sticking up in sweaty clumps. I paused, dragging some good-sized sticks, looked at him, then continued. He watched me go with a scowl, scratching absently at his belly.

I was nervous, that was part of it. Plus I felt guilty being here at camp while everyone else was being hunted. And I was conditioned like a fuckin thoroughbred racehorse to run miles through the jungle, so sitting around wasn't in the cards for me. I had to do _something_, tweaky ankle or not. I envied the guys for their ability to take it easy but I didn't share it.

"She shoulda been a boyscout," Benson commented loudly. "Surprised she hasn't built a housing development with central air and cable for us by now. What time is it?"

"Hell with the cable. I'd settle for indoor plumbing," Sender growled. "Gotta be close to noon. She can't keep it up much longer."

"We got anything to eat?" Benson asked hopefully. "I'll go check by Sarge's tent. You wake up KC. Tell him to get her to knock it off before she screws that ankle up worse and we all get blamed for it."

"I can hear you, you know," I said, annoyed. "My ankle's just fine."

"Sure it is. That's why you're walking like one'a those, whaddya call 'em, pirates," Benson mocked.

"Pirates?" Sender guessed.

I smiled as I listened to their idiocy and stacked the wood I'd gathered in as neat a pile as I could. Yep, I'd miss them. And god, did I hate their guts. Two of the eleven big brothers I'd never had and never wanted. Sarge was the only one of them I didn't consider to be like a brother to me; I respected him too much to think of him like that.

They found some leftovers from dinner, carefully wrapped in broad green leaves. There wasn't enough to go around and I passed, insisting that the three of them eat. They protested weakly while they ate it all. Typical boys.

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><p>The first of our squad-mates started trickling in a short time later. In the beginning of this nightmare, we'd initially tried the full team approach, presenting a unified front against those hunting us. Ultimately it only meant that they found us that much faster, and converged on us en-masse. That was why Sarge started breaking us up into smaller, more mobile teams. Then he started playing around with the make-up of each team, using what we learned about the aliens hunting us, using what we learned about the keepers guarding us. Breaking up each keeper's four charges, putting them all on separate teams and sending them out in different directions. Then sending me out as a scout, then a runner. We were constantly evolving our approach and using each hunt as an opportunity to escape. The keepers stayed one step ahead of us, though. The last few times, though I'd managed to clear the playing field and escape the notice of the younger hunters, Aw Fuck never missed my disappearance and set out in search of me. Hadn't missed me yet, the sonuvabitch. While on the one hand my ability to evade detection from the younger hunters was distinguishable, it frustrated the hell out of me that the same didn't apply to my keeper. Didn't know how he did it, finding me every damn time. Had I known I might have figured out a way to elude him.<p>

In addition to the many tasks I'd undertaken to keep myself busy, I'd boiled a good quantity of river water and added it to the collapsable plastic containers kept on the front porch of the female's tent. The other three tents formed a semi-circle behind ours, a barrier between the jungle, the river and the keepers, leaving the female tent the closest to the clearing. This had been the Sarge's decree, a chivalrous decision that touched the girl in myself, Ramirez, Patty and Guerrero, but was in our estimation, unnecessary. We were just as much soldiers as the next man in the squad and we didn't ask for any special consideration. As a matter of fact, ask any of us and we'll tell you that we work twice as hard as the next guy just to prove ourselves. Case in point, my pass for this hunt, spent not resting and recuperating with the boys but working my ass off to clean the place up and provide a little comfort to the others sharing this hell with me.

Carter, Tank and Creep returned from the jungle and collapsed on the front porch near the water, filling up their canteens and drinking greedily. I scowled and stoked up the fire I had going, then limped back to the river to fill up the metal bucket that had been left here by who-knows-who. The scowl wasn't for my squad-mates; it was annoyance at myself that maybe I hadn't prepared enough water. It was hot as hell today and the others were sure to be desperately thirsty when they came back, too. Took forever to boil water over an open fire in a pit. That, and I let that sucker boil away for awhile, the better to kill any little swimmy that thought it was in a day spa.

Those three were followed by Ramirez and Calm, and the first three made way for them to fill their canteens and drink. Guerrero came alone, dragging her pulse rifle wearily and tossing it near the fire before going to fill her canteen. Carter went back for seconds or thirds and started hollering, "Gunga-din! Bring water! Hurry!"

"There's some cans right there! Dump them in your canteen!" I called back.

The water thing was a tricky bitch, especially for a group this size exerting themselves in constant combat. We had deployed on a short excursion and weren't prepared for a tour this long. Thank god the keepers had found this camp and installed us in it, otherwise we'd be bivouacking on the ground. There were some rudimentary supplies left behind by whoever had cut the clearing and set up the canvas-draped wooden framed tents: tin cans, camp cups, wooden bunks and a few empty crates. We made the most of everything, and everything that could hold water had been boiled to death and used. The cans and cups I'd set aside to cool the boiled water before it was added to the plastic five-gallon container with a nozzle.

"It's warm!" he complained.

"It's clean!" I shot back.

Sarge came in and made a beeline for the water, followed by Reece. Then came Nubby, and Patty after.

"I want a headcount!" Sarge bellowed, glancing around. "Who we missing? Anybody?"

I caught his eye by the fire and he nodded acknowledgement so I could remain there, stoking it up to keep boiling. TJ rolled in while the rest were forming up wearily, and we were still missing one. Satisfied with my boiling, I used a crooked stick to lift the bucket off the fire and carried it to the porch to cool in the dirt nearby. I was pleased to see that there was still some water left, though everyone had filled their canteens and was swigging thirstily. My humping between the river and the fire had paid off, despite the three hangers-on that had been hitting the trough all day like the shit carried itself from the river and boiled itself.

"We got trouble, Sarge," Tank announced, and Calm nodded agreement. Tox was missing. Green Meanie was sitting on the far side of the clearing cleaning his wristblades, honing them with the laser reticule that beamed from his helmet. Loco Marrón was there, too, and as I watched, Reddy Eddie joined them. All present and accounted for...except for Tox and Aw Fuck. The keepers didn't appear to be unduly concerned, which didn't bode well for Tox.


	4. Chapter 4

Thanks so much for your feedback, readers!

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><p>We huddled in a group next to the dead firepit as Tox appeared, shoved unceremoniously from the jungle and into the clearing hard enough to fall on his hands and knees. Aw Fuck marched up from behind him, bristling angrily as he came out of the jungle, and before Tox could get to his feet the keeper snatched him up by the back waistband of his pants and hauled him like a Samsonite suitcase toward the center of camp.<p>

"The _fuck_?" KC whispered from beside me, his tone incredulous.

"Tox tried to pull a Flic," Tank said quietly, and everyone looked at me.

"_What_?" I demanded, a quiet hiss.

"He rabbited," Calm said flatly. "Bailed on his unit. Fucker." He watched impassively as my keeper, and Tox and Calm's too, lugged Tox to the far side of the fire pit, then dropped him to the dirt. Tox was coughing and gasping; apparently this brutal treatment had been for his entire journey back to camp, however long that had been. He was filthy and his fatigues hung off him in tatters, and there was blood on his face.

"He doesn't behave like that toward me," I said, watching in horror as Aw Fuck crouched beside Tox and retrieved something from his belt.

"_Told you_," Sender pointed out. "This is why _you're_ our runner. Not Tox."

Aw Fuck lifted Tox's feet by grabbing the backs of his pants legs, then wound something around his ankles from his other hand. I did a spot-check on the other keepers and saw they were watching but making no move to intervene.

The dark-skinned keeper stood and tilted his head back, looking into the mahogany tree where they hung their kills to let them bleed out. Then he tossed the loose length of the rope or wire he'd tied around Tox's ankles up over the thick, overhanging limb and began to haul him up.

"Oh, no-no-no," Sarge objected, and started forward. On the other side of the fire pit the Green Meanie came instantly to his feet and barked a warning. Sarge's keeper, telling him to keep his distance. "Don't do this!" he pleaded, holding up his hands and moving them slightly as if he could physically push their awesome tempers down.

Tox groaned and started to thrash as his legs came off the ground, then Aw Fuck gave a sharp tug that lifted him and set him dangling. "Sarge!" he started shouting, trying to lift his head and look around as he spun. "Sarge!" Another tug and his head was at the same height as Aw Fuck's belly, well out of reach of the ground. Satisfied, the keeper went to the trunk of the mahogany and tied the line off, leaving Tox to dangle. He returned to Tox but stared at the Sarge, the visors covering his eyes flashing as they reflected the firelight.

"Felicia?" the Sarge said, tossing my full name over his shoulder. I flinched, surprised, then looked from the Sarge to Tox. Then at Aw Fuck, bristling with barely suppressed rage. I'd never seen him so angry. Even Loco Marrón was keeping out of this.

I could feel my squad-mates' eyes on me as I hesitated, then I stepped forward from the huddled group. The slight movement of Aw Fuck's mask warned me that he'd switched his regard from Sarge to me and I flinched, then continued forward until I was side-by-side with my sergeant. "_Do_ something," he hissed, as if I had any control over this situation. Tox was a raving lunatic asshole most times, and while I didn't particularly _like_ him I had no interest in watching him die. Especially not as it appeared, like he was about to be gutted.

As if to confirm my thoughts, Aw Fuck's upper arm bulged and the blades housed in his right gauntlet sprang out over the back of his fist, and Tox started keening like a wild animal. The momentary delay hadn't cooled the keeper's rage, apparently. The individual tendrils of his long black hairs were crested at their roots, rising off his scalp to create a dark crown behind his mask that only added to the menace emanating from him.

Gathering my resolve, I limped forward two more steps, my fists clenched so tightly they were trembling. "Hola, novio," I greeted Aw Fuck, keeping my voice steady. I was astonished to hear a rough trill in response, as if he was courteously returning my greeting despite his temper. "See what happens when you take me out of the game? This stupid idiot decides to take my place."

"_Flic_," the Sarge hissed.

Aw Fuck lifted his head to look past me, issuing a low growl to the Sarge.

"Hide and seek's my game," I said quickly to draw his attention back to me. "Tox sucks at it."

Loco chortled, then reached up to slap the side of Green Meanie's thigh with the back of his hand. The dark green keeper looked down and something was communicated between them before he took a step back to settle on his haunches next to Loco Marrón, where he'd been relaxing before standing and stepping forward to back the Sarge off. They were leaving Aw Fuck to handle this one on his own, then. Letting him finish what he started, despite the human intervention and all.

Emboldened, I shuffled closer, passing the fire pit and putting myself squarely on the keeper side of the camp. Enemy territory. And me without my gun.

"Flic...help me..." Tox pleaded, reaching out toward me when he spun enough to face me. Aw Fuck growled again and reached out with his left hand to shove roughly at him without taking his attention off of me, sending him back into a fast spin.

"He'd probably stop bugging you if you'd just cut him down," I suggested helpfully. "He'll just scoot back over thataway and shut the hell up. Won't you, Tox?" I called, thumbing over my shoulder.

"Whatever...you say..." he agreed weakly, swinging and spinning head-down.

Aw Fuck's thick hairs were settling back into their usual place, I noticed. Relaxing, in other words. I think. "Would you let him down now?" I requested. "Pretty please?"

I heard Sarge grumble behind me, no doubt appalled by those words coming out of one of his soldiers' mouths. Aw Fuck's hair crested again, then just as quickly subsided. Oh, he was on edge alright. Every little thing was setting him off.

Abruptly he straightened and withdrew his wristblades, then pointed at me with the first and middle fingers of his right hand. Then he thumbed back at Tox. Point, thumb. Point, thumb. Becoming annoyed again as I stood there staring in incomprehension, he growled.

"What?" I asked, shrugging and shaking my head. "It should be me hanging there?" I finally guessed.

Trilling, he finally nodded. I looked away from him to regard Tox, still swaying upside-down but quiet now.

"Looks like no fun," I commented.

Aw Fuck tilted his head, some of his thick hairs sliding over his shoulder, then he started to trill. It roughened into a chortle as he nodded again. The other three of his kind joined in his amusement. Sure it was at my expense, but anything to deflate the tension, right?

Aw Fuck grunted, then raised his right hand again, pointing beyond me and holding the point while staring at me. His message was clear: I was to go back to where I'd come from, the opposite side of the camp.

"Let me take him with me," I requested quietly. I didn't much like Tox but he was my squad-mate, and squad-mates looked out for each other despite their differences.

My keeper growled, a long, low sound of warning. Because growling was his primary form of communication, at least him to me, I'd become adept at interpreting his growls. This one wasn't directly threatening or dangerous; it was his 'You're pissing me off' sound, a warning. Usually my response would be to back down or comply with whatever demand he'd made that I was defying.

"You'll stick with the program, right Tox?" I asked, raising my voice. "You've learned your lesson?"

"Right," he agreed, his voice weak.

"See?" I said brightly, hopefully, looking at the dark-skinned keeper. "Lesson learned. All good now."

Aw Fuck had gone into super-still mode, just staring at me. I waited, unsure if he was translating my words into something he could understand, and when he still didn't move I dared to limp even closer. God, he was huge. Just enormous. I imagined I could feel the heat pouring off of him as I caught a strong whiff of coffee, but no vanilla or cinnamon. Pure coffee was not a good thing, since we'd come to learn that the stronger that smell, the higher the level of aggression.

I stopped just out of Aw Fuck's immediate reach, my hands still fisted in tension as he stared down at me. "Tox," I said quietly, "what _exactly_ happened?" When my dangling squad-mate coughed weakly and didn't answer, I said, "_Tox," _my voice harder. He'd given up trying to pull himself up the line he was suspended from and had let his arms hang down. When I dared a quick glance at him I saw he was staring at the ground four feet below his face.

"Broke off during an engagement," he rasped, not looking at me.

"Leaving your team one short," I pointed out. From what I understood, it hadn't been planned or anticipated by the rest of his unit. It was a cowardly thing to do. At least when I did the rabbit thing it was under direct orders and anticipated by the rest of my unit.

"Made it to the cliff," he continued, and I was surprised enough to dare to turn my head and focus my full attention on him. "Fucker cut me off, so I shot him."

"You _shot_ Aw Fuck?" I said, stunned. No wonder the aggression. Rule Number One, enforced with extreme prejudice: Do Not Shoot The Keepers. Early on in our captivity of course we'd tried to stun them down, and we'd learned the hard way that the pulse rifles on their lowest settings stung them but didn't knock them out. Wasn't even powerful enough to knock out the the younger, smaller ones that we were actually allowed to fire on during hunts. Tox had been one of the guys who'd tried to shoot down a keeper at the end of a hunt, so he should have known better. He'd been used as an example to the rest of us that shooting a keeper was a no-no. You would have thought the lesson had stuck with him more than the rest of us, but apparently I'd overestimated his intelligence.

"Like five fucking times. Sonuvabitch wouldn't go down," he admitted, still staring down at the ground. Blood dripped off his face from his mouth and nose, and I assumed that Aw Fuck's immediate reaction had been to strike him.

I wanted to hit him myself. We'd learned the rules and abided by them in order to maintain some semblance of a truce between us and our keepers. We wanted them to drop their guards, cut us some slack, hoping that one day soon it would pay off and factor into our escape or release.

"You stupid motherfucker," I hissed, digging my fingernails into my palms. Here I was on the wrong side of camp, defending an idiot who'd gone against orders, putting myself in the middle of the mess he himself had created. I'd been _this close_ to offering to trade places with him, too, sure that Aw Fuck would go easier on me than on Tox.

"Whatever," he said distantly.

And at that I took a step back, then returned my attention back to the looming predator, still standing absolutely still as he observed and listened. Tox had not only pulled a fast one on him, he'd lifted a weapon and discharged it at him. To continue standing here and protesting his case would reflect badly on the entire squad, instead of focusing the blame on where it belonged. "Sorry to bother you," I mumbled. "Carry on."

His right forearm flexed again to extend the blades as he rumbled, creating an impressive bulge of muscle on the front of his upper arm, then he stepped toward Tox and grabbed his shins in his huge left hand. I was just about to turn away and get the hell out of Dodge when I saw Aw Fuck lift his blades high, above the level of Tox's feet. He was going to cut him down.

"You bitch! You fucking bitch!" Tox started hollering as the blades lifted. I looked at his face, his eyes wild and fixed on me. He didn't know that Aw Fuck was fixing to cut him loose and he was screaming at _me_, I realized. Blaming _me_ for the death he thought was coming.

The reaction was instantaneous. There was a metal-on-metal scrape as Aw Fuck's right hand opened and he retracted the blades back into his gauntlet, still grabbed Tox's shins in his left hand, and punched Tox right in the breadbasket with his fist. Tox's cursing at me cut off with a whomping whoof of air and spit and blood, and Aw Fuck sent him into a fast spinning swing, then growled and walked away, heading for the other three keepers.

"_Dumbass_," I hissed, not even sure Tox would hear me over the sound of his own keening and blubbering. I turned from him, glancing Aw Fuck's way to see his back to me, then I headed for the other side of camp.

"Flic? What happened? What's going on?" my sergeant demanded, his eyes moving between my face and Tox's still-dangling form.

"Let's go," I muttered, wanting and needing to beat a retreat, to distance myself from both the keepers and my stupid, unpredictable squad-mate. I was relieved when Sarge chose to follow me back to the others instead of ordering me to stop and report immediately.

The squad was tense and quiet as we gathered into a small circle to pow-wow. "So, not only did Tox go haring off on his own, apparently when Aw Fuck caught up to him...he shot him. Five times," I announced. There was a collective intake of breath, and the Sarge lifted his head to glare over at Tox.

"Not cool," Benson sighed.

"Mierda la cabeza," Ramirez muttered darkly, and Guerrero nodded. _Shithead_.

"So why'd he curse _you_ out?" Sarge wanted to know, looking at me.

"When Aw Fuck was gonna cut him loose, I guess he thought he was about to get gutted," I shrugged, then picked a small stick up out of the leaf litter.

"And how's that your fault?" Patty demanded.

"Tox had just admitted to me that he'd bolted and shot Aw Fuck. When I heard that shit, I backed off from trying to defend him," I admitted, clearing a small space in front of me of debris and scratching in the dirt with the stick. "I woulda been willing to switch places with him for bolting, but I'm not taking the punishment for shooting."

"Damnit," Sarge growled, after a moment of silence. The mood was collectively dark as everyone mulled things over. It most definitely wasn't one of our finest hours.

"At least one good thing came of this," Reece spoke up, then waited til everyone looked at him. "Least we know for sure now that Flic's novio's sweet on her."

I glared. "Knock if off with that already, wouldya?" I snapped, annoyed. "It's like the third grade around here anymore with this shit. In case you haven't noticed, the whole reason I'm fucked up, the reason Tox tried to pull a Flic like Calm said, is because Aw Fuck knocked my brains out and messed up my ankle, okay? He's not my pal."

Reece met my eyes but subsided, and the group slipped back into mulling silence. Forty three days we'd been stuck here; Sarge kept track by carving a notch for each day on the edge of the wooden deck that formed the front porch of his tent. Every time I headed for the river, my eyes looked at the number of notches; I was sure the same was true for every one of us.

"_Somebody_ had a hot date last night," Nubby drawled, and when I lifted my head with a grin to see who he was calling out, I saw he was looking at me. At his cue, the rest of the squad looked at me also.

"What?" I demanded.

"Last night, _bang,_ everything goes quiet," Nubby said slowly, drawing it out and locking eyes with me. "I wake up and listen, and I hear whispering. _Female_ whispering, loud-like. So I went to the tent flap and what do my eyes see? The big black carrying Flic back to her tent." He gave me a toothy, triumphant smile. For my part I paled, then probably turned a shade of red that didn't exist on any known color scale.

"Is this _true_, hermana?" Ramirez demanded.

I dropped the stick and held up my hands. "Whoah, whoah, whoah. It wasn't like that, okay? I woke up in the middle of the night and went to the river to soak my ankle. Aw Fuck pops up, checks me out, takes a bath, then tries to shove me back to the site. Only it was pitch dark and I'm fuckin' _lame_, remember? So next thing I know he chucks me over his shoulder and carries me back to the tent, okay?"

"You went to the river by yourself?" the Sarge asked, his voice loud. "In the middle of the night?"

I huffed. "Who'm I gonna ask, Sarge? Everybody's gotta get up at the crack and run for their lives. Fuckin' Nubby should have come out, since obviously he was awake." I glared at him.

"I didn't see you go. I only saw you come back, and I wasn't about to interrupt _that_."

"What _that_? There was no _that_," I scowled. "Fuck off with whatever you're trying to imply. Aw Fuck's the reason my ankle's wrecked."

"Your _mouth_ is the reason your ankle's wrecked," the Sarge corrected icily. Great. Patty went and tattled on me. I shot her a look but she was avoiding my eyes. "And now I got Tox swinging upside down on the wrong side of the fire cuz he went and tried to be a hero."

"With all due respect, don't go there, Sarge," Sender protested. "Tox wasn't trying to be no hero."

"I second that," Calm agreed quietly. Surprising, since Calm and Tox were tight. He lifted his canteen and swigged some water, then washed it through his mouth and spat it into the dirt. "He saw an opportunity and he took it."

"Well, no more opportunities," Sarge snapped, then passed a hard glance across every one of us. "Got it?"

"What, then? We're just giving up?" KC demanded boldly. I was glad he'd said it, cuz I was about to. And I was relieved to see that I wasn't the only one about to ask the same question.

"No," Sarge scowled."We're not giving up. We stick to our roles. Flic's got some pull, obviously. She's our runner. It's only a matter of time before she clears the playing field."

It was quiet for a moment after that statement, and I mulled his words over busily, unsure about his confidence. I didn't have 'pull', despite what he thought, despite what Nubby saw. Aw Fuck had almost dashed my brains out against that boulder, and he didn't strike me as being sorry for fucking up my ankle. Seemed to me that something about my injury pissed him off more than anything, causing friction between him and Loco Marrón. Far as I could tell, Aw Fuck had tried to argue with Loco's decision to bench me for this morning's fun and games.

"Doesn't matter. He'll go after her," Nubby said quietly. I lifted my head in time to catch Ramirez's nod of agreement.

"I think they'd run down anybody who tried to escape," I pointed out sourly.

Carter, who'd been amazingly silent all this while, snorted. "I think that one would chase _you_ to Manhattan if that's what it took. Rest of us, fuck it. They'd probably just bail."

"Wait, what?" I asked hotly. "What about me and Aw Fuck?"

"Felicia," the Sarge said, his voice hard and flat, "_concentrate_. Stick with the plan. You're our ticket outta here."

Ramirez was looking at me. If I was any judge of her hard face, I'd say her expression was sympathetic. Guerrero and Patty refused to look at me. I furrowed my brows, suspicious of what my three female squad-mates were thinking. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

"I'll do it," I assured the rest, my voice firm. I couldn't think about the price that might have to be paid for my team's freedom, or the fact that I might end up being the one paying it. I had to keep on, to try. Aw Fuck, brutal bully that he was, treated me differently. I couldn't deny that anymore, not after what happened between him and me and Tox. I was smarter than Tox for sure, knowing better than to actually try to hurt my keeper. It would never cross my mind to fire my dumbed-down pulse rifle at him when he caught me on my forays, and maybe that made all the difference. Or maybe, like the others thought, it was merely my sex that made all the difference. But no matter what, if the rest bolted and made it clear, there would be no reason for Aw Fuck to hang on to me, right? If the jig was up and the game was over, he'd let me go my way while he went his. I had to believe that.

Annoyed with my squad-mates, I got to my feet without waiting for Sarge to dismiss me, then limped off to my tent. Sarge didn't call me back, and I had a sneaking suspicion, as I collapsed on my bunk, that I was the topic of conversation. Screw them. Screw everyone. I would do my job, do what had to be done, but I didn't need to hear their shit, too.


	5. Chapter 5

This one's for those who wanted to know about what's happening from the yautjas' perspective, a little bit of insight from the other side of the clearing where our heroes are being held captive. Hopefully it answers some questions but leaves you with about a hundred more!

Disclaimer: This story is intended to be a tense unfolding drama that carries you along step by step, tossing you into a hostile environment where you're pretty much as clueless about what's going on as the soldiers are. There is nothing sweet or romantic about these yautja; they are tough and primal and borderline brutal, though they will on occasion show another side to their behavior when the situation allows for it. That should keep everyone guessing...

This chapter's a little longer than I intended and I could have split it into two chapters...but I decided to go with this. Enjoy, and feel free to review and let me know what you think!

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><p>It was stifling in the tent but I managed to fall asleep anyway, exhausted from the noise in my head, from my anger at all the innuendo, from spending half the night tossing and turning, unable to sleep. When I woke up from my nap it was to the cacophony that signaled the start of twilight, the calling of the day creatures as they prepared to bed down mixed with the night creatures as they started stirring. I was drenched with sweat and my head was pounding. Top it off, I was still annoyed.<p>

In a mood, I yanked the light blanket I was lying on off the bed and balled it up in my hands, then took the time before I left the tent to hoist the flaps open in hopes that some fresh air would circulate through. No such luck; the air outside was as dense and heavy as the air inside, and it smelt like rain. I re-spread the blanket on my bunk, deciding against washing it since, obviously, it wasn't going to dry out tonight.

Regardless of the pending storm, I wasn't about to forego a dip in the river. I needed to cool off, and I was hoping that a bath would improve my mood. In the clearing, my squad-mates were getting the fire going, starting the nightly ritual of trying to build it as big as they possibly could before one of the keepers put a stop to it. There was always the hope that the fire would be spotted and investigated, thus ending our nightmare. Every night we attempted a signal fire that was supposed to be a cooking fire for the meat our keepers provided for us, and every night whichever keeper was bringing our portion of meat over kicked it down to a more reasonable size. Literally. Barefoot and bare legged, I might add.

Tox had rejoined the team. Seeing him sitting on a log with his head in his hands, I momentarily paused, then glanced over toward our keepers. Reddy Eddie was missing but the other three were there, unmasked and eating already. Like us, they preferred their meat cooked. They had a small fire going and something on a spit over it, dripping fat into the flames.

I looked away before I lingered too long, before my curious glance was seen and misinterpreted by someone. As I looked back at Tox I saw that he'd lifted his head and was glaring at me with blatant hostility. I had no desire to be on his bad side, but then again, he had no right to put me there. I lifted my chin before turning away, doing my damndest to walk with dignity and finding that near impossible with an aching and stiff ankle hitching my stride. I cursed a blue streak in my head but continued my stoic, gimping march away from the clearing and the fire, and down the path to the river.

"Flic, wait up," Patty called from behind, jogging to catch up.

"I'd prefer to be alone," I said flatly, not slowing or turning to look at her.

"Sarge wants me to go with," she said, matching my stride and settling in beside me.

"Why? So you can tell on me like a two-year-old?" I snapped.

"Whoah. Wow. What the hell climbed up your ass?" she asked, her voice low.

"Everyone. Everything. Just leave me alone."

She fell back a bit but followed me to the river, then settled on a rock and stayed quiet while I went in. I kept my back to her and tried to pretend that I was alone, that I had some breathing room, that my every move wasn't being monitored.

It was dark. Not night-dark but the ominous darkness of storm clouds rolling in, blanketing the jungle. The oppressiveness in the air matched my mood, and I took my time with my soak, even floating for awhile, staring up at the sky. Something splashed near me and startled me, and when I bobbed upright I saw Patty some distance away on the shoreline, ready to lob another rock my way to get my attention. Apparently I'd floated too far for her liking, carried by the current and unable to hear her because my ears were underwater.

Scowling, I leisurely breast-stroked back toward her, enjoying the slide of the cool water over my skin. The sky blinked, and the first drops of rain started to fall around me. Between my mood, my too-long nap, the oppressive humidity and stillness and the coming storm, I doubted I was going to get much sleep tonight.

There was a low, traveling rumble that still sounded some distance off as I stepped out of the river, wincing as my ankle took my weight again and twinged. Fucking Patty. If she wasn't here baby-sitting me I could have floated for much longer, letting the river take me where it would. That was a much better alternative than returning to the camp, to my squad-mates and our keepers.

She trailed me back to the camp, continuing to the fire and the meat that had been brought over and not objecting as I turned off and went to the platform in front of my tent. I sighed and sat, leaning back against the wooden framework and closing my eyes as I listened to the tapping of the raindrops on the leaves, blocking out the murmur of voices around the fire.

"Flic," Sarge said, and I opened my eyes but didn't move. He was standing in front of the platform with a hunk of meat on a bone. "You gotta eat."

"Not hungry," I said flatly.

Sarge sighed and held it out. "Just eat."

"I didn't work today." You don't work, you don't eat. My daddy taught me that one.

"Like hell you didn't," Sarge said, starting to become annoyed. He stepped up onto the platform, then settled himself beside me. "You're pissed," he said, "I get that. Doesn't mean I'm gonna let you starve yourself."

"Who said I was starving myself?" I scowled.

"Soldier. Don't make me be a hardass," he warned.

"Sarge," I sighed, and finally looked at him. "Just let me be for awhile."

He stared at me, his dark, round face serious and shining with sweat. He was old enough to be my father. A soldier through and through, married to the Army. I liked him and I respected the hell out of him, but just right now he was bugging the shit outta me. "I will. So long as you eat."

I held out my hand and he passed over the meat. He didn't move, though, and I didn't take a bite. "You're still here," I pointed out.

"You're not eating."

"I told you: I'm not hungry."

"Alright, you're gonna make me go there," he said, his voice harder. "Put yourself in my place, Felicia. I'm responsible for fifteen lives, yours included. I'm dealing with an unknown threat, hostile ETs who have disarmed my team and are holding us hostage. I got a guy with cracked ribs, a guy with a torn shoulder, a guy with a wrenched back, a guy who's on the watch list because he tried to rabbit and discharged his weapon on one of those ETs, and you. I need my injured to goddamn take care of themselves so they can heal, and that includes eating. And I need you to grow a thicker skin and stop letting everyone get to you."

I bristled. "Instead of yelling at me, how about telling them to tone it down? I'm under more pressure than any of them and I don't need the fucking pile-on party!"

"They're just blowing off steam, Flic. You used to roll with it. I don't know why you can't seem to do it anymore, but I need you to figure it out and move on."

"I'm trying. Maybe if everyone would just leave me the fuck alone for awhile..." I snapped, glaring at him.

"We left you alone for hours. Had yourself a nice nap, a swim-"

"You sent Patty to the river with me," I said, cutting him off.

He blinked. "Did she say something?"

"She fucking tattled to you about how my ankle got wrecked!"

Now his mystified expression hardened back into the no-nonsense, no bullshit Sarge we all knew. "I asked her if she knew what happened to your ankle, and she told me what you'd said, that the black bastard picked you up and dropped you because you mouthed off at him. Out of everyone here I expect you to mind your P's and Q's, especially with that one that keeps an eye on you. I don't blame you for what Tox went and did, but I do blame you for what happened to your ankle, for the fact that you can't keep your big mouth shut and, because of that, you missed an opportunity to make the cliff this morning. I don't know what it is with the keepers and the females in my squad, with you and that black one especially, and I don't give a good goddamn for the moment. All I know is that the females of my team don't have to worry about getting too knocked around because our hostile ETs make it a point to go easier on them, to look out for them, and that yours honest-to-god doesn't seem overly bothered by the fact that you take off running at every opportunity."

"I think he hobbled me," I said quickly.

"And then you have to go and...what?" he asked, continuing his ranting tirade until my words suddenly registered.

"On purpose," I added. "I don't think he intended to take me out of the game, just scare me from running anymore. That's why the argument between him and Loco, when Loco benched me." I'd been mulling it over for hours and it made sense to me. Loco was pissed that Aw Fuck had damaged me. Aw Fuck was pissed, too. I don't think he'd intended to damage me as badly as he had. It had been a measly three-foot drop but it was half my body length. His temper had gotten the best of him, and I, dangling and dazed, hadn't been prepared for the free-fall, leaving my foot at an awkward angle when I hit.

"Used to be, I'd always tried bolting again after he found me," I told the Sarge. "Tried to zig-zag the trees and lose him. The last time I pulled that trick on him, when he caught up, he did this thing, running the side of his finger behind my ankle. I didn't get it until he put his hand on the knife he wears on his calf." I paused, licking my lips and swallowing quietly as I remembered the moment of clarity. "He was threatening to hamstring me."

Sarge actually paled. "You never told me this," he breathed. "Why didn't you tell me this?"

"Because you would have told me to stop running, and you wouldn't have let anyone else try. And if I stop running, what're we gonna do? Sit here trying to build a signal fire every night til they kick it down? Spend the rest of our lives getting pummeled?" I pressed my lips together and shook my head. "Besides, that was awhile ago. I realized it's not the initial running that pissed him off, it was the running after he found me, when the game was over and I was caught fair and square."

"Then why'd he pick you up and drop you?"

I pressed my lips together and let out a long breath through my nose. "Guess he doesn't appreciate being mocked," I admitted, then scowled. I'd mocked him because he'd been mocking me. "I'm gonna keep running. Maybe he won't follow through with his threat cuz Loco'd have his head for it. Doesn't matter. If he hamstrings me I'll crawl. But I'm not sitting here until I die, Sarge. At least, not without trying everything I can to get the hell out."

"Jesus, soldier, you should have told me," Sarge said, shaking his head.

"Anyway, this is why I don't want to hear anymore shit talk about how 'special' I am and how Aw Fuck treats me. Nobody's got hanging over their head what I got hanging over mine. I believe if he gets pissed enough he'll do it, Loco's opinion be damned. I just gotta keep thinking that the odds are in my favor and I'll get clear before he finally gets that pissed off. Cuz I ain't sitting around here twiddling my thumbs for the rest of my life."

* * *

><p>Skemte maintained a cautious awareness of the re-appearance of his female charge as she exited her sleeping quarters. A glance passed between her and the aggressive male he'd allowed to rejoin the pack, then she and another female went to the river. The male looked over at him after she disappeared and Skemte resumed the meticulous cleaning of his dagger, staring back.<p>

Mahnde grunted quietly. He had decreed he would take personal responsibility over for troublesome ooman male, giving Skemte one of his male charges in exchange in order to keep the numbers evenly distributed.

It didn't matter; Skemte still wanted to kill the little _c'jit_ for the offense of daring to discharge his weapon at him. His innards ached and his cloaking device had required some repair after multiple electrical strikes at close range. For now he soothed himself with the task of weapons maintenance, checking for corrosion, cleaning, sharpening, treating. The familiar movements helped to calm him, as well as the thoughts that occupied his mind while he worked, the respectful and deliberate recollection of each and every creature bested and felled by spear, disc, blade and cannon. All worthy opponents, unlike the _s'yuit-de_ _tarei'hsan _too stupid to even know enough to be grateful that its life was spared while it sat by the fire.

Mahnde grunted again, this time looking at Skemte who deliberately ignored him. It wasn't intended to be a disrespectful slight and they knew each other well enough that it wasn't received that way, either. Skemte's temper was potent, and when triggered it required a considerable time to cool off. Mandhe had been initially surprised that he hadn't killed the ooman male in the _dto_ and left him there to rot, before realizing that Skemte had intended to exact his revenge in full view of the other oomans, the better to impress upon them the penalty for daring to lash out at the wrong yautja.

The situation had been dire enough that Mandhe had feared it would result in the failure of this so-far successful exercise. Killing one of the trophy animals in full view of its pack would no doubt result in a change in their behavior, perhaps a disintegration of their tenuously established cooperation. Instead, the pack had provided its own solution, its leader urging Skemte's female charge forward to intervene on the offending male's behalf. The ploy had been successful, distracting Skemte and cooling his temper. Mandhe wisely decided to trade the offending male for one of his male charges, making it no longer Skemte's responsibility. Now it remained to be seen if the stupid thing would decide to be a threat to the female. Clearly, Skemte still considered the male to be a problem.

Aware of Mandhe's occasional glances, Skemte let his thoughts wander idly while he concentrated on his weapons, his temper cooling in steady increments as he let it and stopped feeding into it. Another storm was signaling its impending arrival with low-frequency rumbles and flashes of light, and the trophy animals were calm and subdued, gathered by their fire for now. He was aware that his female and another were at the river; Oc'djy had followed them as the other female was his responsibility, keeping an eye on them to prevent attempted escape. Nat'ka'pu - the other youngblood Mandhe had recruited for this experiment - was diligently carving the tusk of some native beast, working it into some design that he intended to add to his armor, chirring and chittering to himself quietly. Skemte grunted in annoyed derision; both youngbloods had spent considerable time adorning themselves with bones and feathers, no doubt dreaming about the next breeding season as they competed with each other in this subtle, ancient tradition.

Skemte had no interest in decorating himself; everything he wore was purely utilitarian. There were no female yautja here to impress, and he'd long since learned painful lessons that had taught him that such adornments added bulk and tended to clatter and rattle at the most inopportune times. The iridescent avian feathers that might catch a female yautja's eye were just as capable of catching the attention of potential prey, in some cases not only ruining stealth but resulting in that potential prey turning predator. He had moved well beyond his youngblood years, and had a personal preference for hunting creatures of a size capable of eating him and walking away from the encounter still hungry. To turn himself into an attractive lure covered in clattering bones and breeze-sensitive, brightly colored feathers would considerably shorten his lifespan in the environs he preferred to hunt.

Despite his preference for far larger trophies, he was on the ooman homeworld. His experience with this planet was the reason his old _n'yaka-de_ Mandhe had requested his assistance with this experiment; there had been a long season in his life when he'd been a prolific hunter of oomans. He had great respect for the Elder, and when he and the clan had chosen Skemte, citing Skemte's familiarity with this planet and his expertise in hunting the sentient race that dominated it, he had agreed to participate. Though Mahnde was the leader of this expedition, he willingly deferred to Skemte's judgment calls, leaving it to him to choose the best area to conduct these trials, allowing him to pick the oomans who would be used to train the unblooded. Skemte had done that, and shrugged indifferently when Mahnde had split the ooman fighters up among them and the two youngbloods his old Master had brought along. He hadn't particularly cared to take his pick of them; one ooman was the same as the next as far as he was concerned. He would do what Mahnde asked of him, at least through the season, then decide where to go and what to do next from there.

It had been, he had to admit, interesting enough. While he'd hunted oomans in the past, he hadn't really taken the time to passively observe them, to watch their interactions and their day-to-day grooming, eating and sleeping habits. What was more interesting was watching this group's machinations as they deferred to a leader, organized and reorganized, and modified their strategies with every hunt. Clearly they were attempting escape, though Skemte wasn't particularly afraid they possibly could. He'd done his homework and knew enough to know they weren't native to this region, then he'd picked the most remote location within the vast untamed forest to put them in.

He actually began to enjoy the game when it turned out that the female who had been assigned as his responsibility was picked to be their runner. He'd lost her and had to go searching following a hunt while the rest returned to the encampment. Truthfully it hadn't bothered him all that much and it was actually a bit of a challenge. Finally. At last, something to break up the monotony and keep him busy, giving him a legitimate excuse to not have to return to their established home base and sit in boring silence with Mahnde and the two youngbloods, polishing his armor and honing his weapons while he waited for the arrival of the next batch of unblooded.

Though he hadn't been in any particular hurry to find her, it still surprised him to find how far she'd wandered off the playing field. It spoke to him of purpose and intent, not aimless wandering. When he confronted her she'd bolted off, proving that she hadn't exhausted herself in the effort to get this far. He'd amused himself with a chase, purposely not making any effort to catch her quickly, though he could have.

It became a pattern for awhile, her running off while the rest fought. Her efforts became focused on the one small mountain in the area and the steep rocky cliff that topped it. It became less of a challenge to find her when she continued coming to the same place time after time, though at his appearance she still tried to run from him. That had become annoying to him; something about it made him feel disrespected. When he'd made his wordless threat to slice the tendon above her heel she learned to accept that it signaled the end of her game, conceding respectfully and ceasing her attempts to run from him when he found her.

The female had become, quite honestly, the only interesting thing in this whole endeavor for Skemte. Not a sexual interest, not a companionable interest. Just the one thing that was unpredictable and interesting, that behaved in a way that pricked his curiosity and offered him a challenge. And after his threat to hobble her, she started to pay more attention to him instead of treating him as part of the scenery, taking care to show him the respect he deserved. She would allow him closer to her than any of the other oomans would allow any of them, and her familiarity caused him to develop a certain fondness for her, though he hadn't consciously realized it at first.

Despite the fact that he was perceived to have unusual patience among his kind, his temper was growing shorter. He was used to battling with things that had the potential to kill him, and this sedentary existence was wearing on him. He started feeling agitation that his skills and fitness level were waning with the lack of a proper challenge. Though he preferred hunting and fighting an opponent who could be the death of him, by no means was he ready to die. It aggravated him to think that by doing this favor for Mahnde and his clan, he could lose his endurance, that his lightning-fast reaction time could slow, that his infamous and carefully honed edge could dull.

And that was what had led to him damaging the female. Her small but blatant show of disrespect toward him had tweaked his temper and he'd overreacted, picking her up too roughly, handling her too hard. It had only made him angrier that she'd come away from the encounter with visible injury. It had shamed him, especially when Mahnde saw her obvious injury. Even worse that the Elder had been the one to approach her with the intent to treat her. And then his proprietary interest in her had been pricked when he watched her willingly submit to his former _ny'ada-de_, showing him respect and allowing him to touch and handle her without dispute.

Interesting how his lapse of self-control, through no particular fault of her own, had resulted in the return of her respectful behavior. He was inordinately pleased that she'd named him, even more pleased to come across her alone that night when he'd headed to the river to refresh himself. She hadn't run from him, hadn't even reacted, really. Her lack of fear and her acceptance of his punishing rebuke for her disrespect had earned his respect. It meant that this was a creature that could be trained, possibly even tamed. Again she'd allowed him to handle her, though he'd sensed her fear and uncertainty at his touch. In response he'd gifted her with a true purr to reassure her, a sound he hadn't issued in as long as he could remember, and only ever had directed at a female who was being recalcitrant during breeding to soothe and relax her. It had worked on this female just as well, quieting and stilling her. She'd gone limp and rested the full weight of her small limb in his hand, the beating of her heart and the pace of her breathing slowing and relaxing as she allowed him to examine the comparatively slender joint he'd damaged.

And after, she'd lingered at the river's edge while he'd bathed, not running off to her shelter with the others or hiding in the jungle. Her willing company pleased him and felt like a small victory. Of all those in the encampment, he couldn't think of one whose presence at the river's edge while he bathed would have been more welcome.

Then followed another interesting realization about her kind. He'd thought she was being difficult when she'd balked at returning to her shelter. He couldn't very well leave her where he'd found her, and as this ooman was his responsibility he intended to make sure he returned her to where she belonged. It wasn't until she almost walked off the path and into a tree that he realized she wasn't being difficult. The ooman planet had a particularly bright star that warmed it and made it almost painfully bright to his eyes. He'd known that oomans were diurnal creatures and because of that their vision was best suited to the light levels when the star illuminated whatever part of the planet they happened to live in. This, then, was proof of the weakness of their vision at night.

Her resistance, when he decided to carry her, had been surprisingly minimal. He was well aware that she hadn't been pleased to be picked up, but at the same time she'd used her surprising intelligence to limit her rebuttal. He was stronger than her and his ability to use force was undisputed. So she'd indicated her displeasure but submitted to being carried, staying stiff and keeping herself propped up against his back with her small hands. And then...and then she'd thanked him for his assistance.

Sleep had failed him that night, and he'd roused for the early hunt with a sense of agitation after mulling about the ooman female all night. His agitation had made him aggressive, even toward her, as he'd gone out of his way to issue her a direct order that he wanted her to stay put. Not that she was supposed to, not that Mahnde had told her, not because she was temporarily lame, no. Specifically that it was his desire that she remain at the camp.

She had obeyed, but this private victory had been overshadowed by one of the other males' attempt to take her place, then carrying it a step further by discharging his weapon multiple times when confronted. Skemte had been in a foul mood to begin with, and this had not helped calm him any. He was relieved and pleased to see her in the camp when he'd returned, but still wholly focused on punishing the one who had dared to run and dared to attack.

And then she had come, willingly approaching him to beg forgiveness for her fellow ooman. His temper had been cooled by his amazed fascination, by his awareness that he had to be careful and not scare her off. She'd amused him, then surprised him by backing off upon learning that the male had tried to shoot him. It meant that she understood what was acceptable behavior and what was not. She would intercede for the male's running but not for his attempt to harm. Skemte had been willing to reward her respectful effort by releasing the male anyway, until the idiot thing had started cursing at her. Had the male just stayed quiet he would have been freed; cursing the female only solidified Skemte's original desire to punish him and make an example of him.

He shifted in his comfortable crouch, sheathing his blade in the bindings on his lower right leg. He glanced at what remained of their rations, debating going for a hunt. There would be a few cycle lull before the next ship full of unblooded yautja young in training arrived to experience their first ooman hunt, and Mandhe was hopeful that the rest period would result in the healing of the injured trophy animals so the pack would return to full strength and provide proper challenge. In the meantime they would need to be fed.

The rain started, and Skemte stayed where he was. The females returned from the river, Oc'djy's settling by the fire with the rest while his female charge isolated herself by her sleeping quarters. The pack leader brought food to her, and Skemte stared while they conversed, his mind working. She was still lame, and now she appeared to be refusing to eat. Eventually the pack leader prevailed, remaining beside her while she ate the meat he'd brought her. Staking a claim? Creating a bond? Or perhaps it was a way of strengthening and re-affirming an existing bond. Despite the leader's clear and apparently undisputed authority, he didn't seem interested in breeding the females in his pack, and none of the other males attempted to do so, either. In this way they reminded Skemte of something like a hunting pack, one of mixed sexes that treated each other equally. The females weren't accorded any particular respect by any but the yautja; all the trophy animals were fair game in these training hunts because the ooman weapons were a great equalizer when it came to this race. Once disarmed, this species' females did not possess the physical strength of their male counterparts, one of the more striking differences between yautja kind and ooman kind. Mandhe had been skeptical at first about using them for this experiment, but they'd proven to be just as aggressive and skilled with their weapons as the males, and they didn't hesitate to arm themselves and join the males in the hunts. The Elder had ultimately chosen to follow the example of how to treat them from the pack's own leader, who showed his deference for them by grouping them together in the same sleeping quarters, expected them to follow his orders and fight, and was quick to draw lines and assert his authority when it came to any differences between them and the male members of the pack.

Oc'djy settled near Nat'ka'pu, eyeing the tusk he'd been carving spirals into. The two of them kept a respectful distance from Skemte at all times and maintained an awareness of him, as it should be. He was not kin, not one of their peers, and he'd proven to have a low tolerance for their presence. That he'd even deigned to join this venture was merely a testament to his high respect for the _ny'aka-de_ they all shared and who had been chosen by their clan to conduct this trial. The large dark yautja was not the youngbloods' friend and had little to no interest in them, beyond that they show him proper respect and deference. To him, they were only slightly less simple and primitive than the oomans they'd captured, plus they were less interesting.

The storm intensified and the oomans retreated from the clearing as their fire was smothered by the downpour. They broke up into smaller groups and went inside their sleeping quarters. Skemte waited until his charges had all retired, then he caught the Elder's eye and jerked his chin. There was an answering nod from Mandhe that gave him acknowledgement, then he rose from his crouch and melted into the _dto_ to hunt, leaving the other three to keep watch.


	6. Chapter 6

The end of the year is always like a marathon, between the holidays and work, the crappy weather and the short daylight hours. Several times I meant to post an update for this story, but I couldn't find the time to do a final read-through of the chapter and write a forward...until today.

With so many characters in this story, and most of them having nicknames, I'm tempted to post some sort of roster. It was a bit of a challenge to juggle them as I wrote it, then to flesh them out as primary, secondary and tertiary. There's part of me that thinks creating a roster means that I haven't done an acceptable job of clarifying who is who and fleshing the characters out in the body of the story. Case in point: Mahnde is the Elder yautja leader, known by the soldiers as Loco Marrón, oftentimes just referred to as Loco - or Crazy Brown, for all you non-spanish-speakers. Whew. That's a lotta 'splainin'.

So ultimately I decided I will leave it up to my readers to let me know if they would like me to break it down in a list: if you're confused with the cast, pop me a note.

Usual Disclaimer Applies: Mature-rated story. Not every chapter will have something gnarly in it, but overall it's filled with enough cursing and violence and gore to earn it the right to that rating. Just to be safe and all.

* * *

><p>I knew I was being hunted. It made me slam my back up against a tree, huffing to catch my breath. Question was, who was it? Aw Fuck, as I assumed? Or one of the young predators in training? Possibly even one of the other three keepers. Or someone human, one of the local militia groups that were rumored to be operating in the area. Could even be a native hunter of one of the indigenous tribes. It kept me frosty, that was for sure.<p>

Some animal screamed a warning from the trees and I took off, bolting through the thick vegetation. No matter what was hunting me, the shriek had been close. Since Aw Fuck's threat to hamstring me I'd changed my strategy to include giving up the second he found me, instead of still trying to run like I had been. If it was him stalking me now, I had to keep moving to delay recapture as long as possible, to put as much distance between us as I could. If it wasn't Aw Fuck...the same applied. Get away. I was armed only with a pulse rifle permanently set to stun. Tox had confirmed that even five shots weren't enough to knock a keeper out, and I didn't know what effect the gun would have on an angry jaguar.

I skirted the cliff, wanting to climb but knowing that I would only risk exposure on its slope if I did. The little hairs on the back of my neck were on edge and I paid attention, moving quick as I could but maintaining silence as much possible, sacrificing some speed to do it. It was the awareness that Aw Fuck had the ability to just appear without warning that was setting my alarms off. Unless he'd royally fucked up, there should be no sense that I was being hunted, no reaction from the surrounding jungle. He was stealthy, preferred to travel in the trees, and had the ability to camouflage himself, making him invisible to most eyes. The younger ones bumbled more and were sloppy in the jungle, inexperienced. Aw Fuck, on the other hand, had mastered the environment so well that he blended in.

My suspicions were confirmed when there was a blur of motion ahead of me that brought me to a halt. The invisibility cloak melted away with an electrical crackle and Aw Fuck looked from his gauntlet to me and growled. I stiffened. Something still wasn't right.

I lifted a hand from my gun and put a finger to my lips, hoping he got the hint to stay quiet. Not only did he not, he wasn't remotely amused. That fact was broadcast by the flaring of his ropy dreadlocks as he tucked his chin and lifted his shoulders, then growled again. I made the universal shush motion again, then thumbed back over my shoulder. There was something out there, I was sure of it.

He grasped something in my attempt to communicate because his growl silenced and he cocked his head. He could have just been reacting to my failure to speak; usually my reaction to his presence was a slumped posture of defeat and verbal acknowledgement. He was far from stupid, and my change in normal behavior could have alerted him. He and I had been at this cat-and-mouse game long enough to have developed patterns and established rules. I ran, he stalked. He found me, I capitulated. I handed over my weapon, he shadowed me back to camp.

Two things happened simultaneously then: the thick, humid air was rent with a sharp crack, and Aw Fuck flinched, wheeling as a splash of neon green burst from his side. He dropped into a crouch, hands on the ground, then lifted his head to look at me and issue a baritone growl, long and low. This one wasn't his usual sound of irritated communication; it was ominous threat, truncated with a caustic snarl.

He thought it was _me_, I realized with a wash of iciness that poured down the back of my neck and spread through my entire body. He thought _I'd_ shot him somehow. He rose to full height and looked down at the wound on his flank as he bristled and I stood frozen, staring in shock and still clutching my pulse rifle in both hands, not daring to move a muscle.

Then came a barrage of automatic weapons fire. Despite being pressed back against a tree trunk I felt a sharp sting on my right arm. I corrected my position, sidling to the left to give myself better cover, and there was a roar from Aw Fuck that scared the shit out of me. He charged past me, shoving my shoulder hard as he passed and forcing me down into a crouch at the base of the tree, almost knocking me forward. There was hollering and shouting behind me in the direction he'd gone, the voices all male and speaking spanish.

Guerilla group, had to be. There was screaming and sporadic gunfire and I realized that Aw Fuck had engaged them. I dared a quick peek around my cover and saw nothing through the heavy jungle foliage. A burst of automatic weapon fire and I ducked back, taking a second to check my arm. These weren't advanced military-issued pulse rifles that fired energy rounds that cauterized; these were standard projectile weapons. I'd been lucky. The bullet had glanced across my tricep, cutting a deep bloody gouge but not imbedding itself in either flesh or bone. It hurt like a motherfucker but at least I still had use of my arm.

Another burst of gunfire and Aw Fuck bellowed, making me cringe. The sound was a mixture of braying donkey and trumpeting elephant, an odd dual-frequency vocalization that was alien and chilling, and definitely not produced by a human voicebox.

Stay or go? Hunker down or make a run for it? There was the crashing sound of someone charging through the jungle and I automatically brought my weapon up in response. I had time to register camo pants and a black tee shirt and I fired, a quick two-round burst. Both were direct hits, and the man threw his hands up and arched his back as he fell forward. My eyes tracked the flight path of his weapon as he flung it, and once he was down I went for it. M4, sweet. I ejected the mag, eyed the remaining rounds, and quickly patted the guy down for more. He was wearing a vest that held four additional magazines and I stripped him of it and pulled it on, then slapped a fresh mag into the gun to change out the used one. And on more instinct than sense, I advanced toward the sounds of combat with my newly acquired weapon held at the ready, my finger on the trigger and the stock pressed tight and hard to my shoulder. Given time to think about it, I probably would have run in the other direction, using the confrontation as a distraction to put more distance between myself and my keeper. As it was, fighting was not only in my blood, it was my profession, and lately, my existence. It was as automatic as breathing to run towards the shouting and shooting, keeping to a low crouch, gun held ready, using the foliage for cover as I darted.

I almost needn't have bothered using stealth. A body came flying at me and I ducked aside, my eyes following. I didn't shoot because it was sailing backward, legs and arms forward, head down, trailing guts as it went. It crashed into a clump of ferns and gurgled a bit, still alive but not for long. I left it and continued my advance, then came into a small clearing.

Aw Fuck and the other keepers tended to move slowly around the camp where they kept us. Their power and skill had been proven in a battle against us but it had gone largely unseen, since they'd maintained their ability to cloak, using stealth to get close to each soldier and disarm him or her. Here and now, though, was a different and altogether terrifying view of Aw Fuck. He was in the center of the clearing, a six or seven foot metal spear in both hands. And he was _whirling_, cutting through the attacking soldiers around him like a hot knife through melting butter. Head up, body in a slight crouch, feet and arms constantly moving as he spun left and right, then full circle, jabbing and slashing. The spear was a silvery blur of motion, fast enough to knock bullets aside, the pointed tips on either end inflicting wounds so rapidly that, as I watched, the soldiers who'd been struck didn't seem to realize it at first. They were shouting and grouping, trying to break through his defenses, this one hurling knives, that one firing mindlessly enough to hit one of his own men on the opposite side of the circle.

The knife thrower was unzipped from nuts to neck in the act of raising his arm for another throw. Aw Fuck had already turned to face another as the man stood frozen for a second, then he looked down at himself and the expanding red line down his front. He dropped the knives in his hands and hastily tried to keep his insides from spilling out but they burst over his hands and he fell to his knees. All in the amount of time it took for Aw Fuck to impale another soldier and decapitate the one next to him.

Holy. Shit.

Aw Fuck was powerful. Graceful. Fast as hell. Dancing on the balls of his feet, his massive muscular weight carried nimbly, his whole body engaged in the effort of putting power behind each movement of the spear. Honest to god, he made barely a sound in the leaf litter, his style of fighting changing every time I blinked. Even for men armed with automatic weapons and despite his huge size, he made for a difficult target to try and draw a bead on, and in their confusion and chaos they'd circled around him without thinking about the consequences of crossfire.

Somewhere along the line his mask had been knocked off, which only had the effect of instilling even more fear in the soldiers that surrounded him. His face was fearsome, and just right now his golden eyes were bright and feral, his tusks and mandibles spread wide on either side of his mouth. His abdomen was peppered in green neon, evidence that some of the bullets fired at him had found their targets, but it didn't appear to be either slowing him down or hindering his movements. His ropy dreadlocks flung out behind him as he pirouetted to deliver a fatal backslash to a soldier attempting to charge from behind, and as I watched he completed the full circle in time to deflect a volley of machine gun fire from the opposite side.

There were still a dozen soldiers determined to take him down and occupying his attention, but with the benefit of distance from the confrontation I saw an additional three coordinating their efforts to line him – and _me_, positioned just beyond him - up in the sights of a considerably larger weapon. It wasn't an RPG but was clearly something similar, though not in top shape, or top of the line, or wielded by competent users. They were, however, fixing to shoot him with it, the surrounding men in the line of fire who were busy distracting him be damned. I watched for a few seconds, idly wondering how big the bang would be. And as they seemed to get their shit together enough to stop their bickering and coordinate their efforts to load, wield, and balance the barrel of the weapon in Aw Fuck's direction, I raised my M4 and directed a three-shot burst at the point man. In a split second the M4 spit three .223s and Moe went down like a sack of potatoes, leaving Larry and Curly yelling at him to get up.

I glanced at Aw Fuck and saw that I had interrupted his buzz-saw karma enough that he slowed a step, his eyes fixed on me. He took in the weapon in my hands and whirled, lifting the guy impaled on the end of his spear overhead and flinging him at the other two stooges. It was as if he'd been playing before but he was serious now, and suddenly in a hurry. His style of attack changed yet again, going from a defensive dance that drew them in like moths to a zap light to a more direct approach. He bellowed, the sound cringe-worthy, the shriek of rusty brakes, the roar of a jet engine, the bugle of an charging elephant and the wail of a fire horn, all combined into one awesome multi-tonal sound that eloquently conveyed his rage. The soldiers were cut down even faster, before they could either regroup or gather enough wits between them to run for their lives.

And that was when it occurred to me that maybe I should high-tail it the hell outta there. I could act all high and mighty sitting here in judgment of a terribly uncoordinated but sizable group of guerilla fighters until they were all gone, leaving me and Aw Fuck alone on the battle field and staring each other down. No thanks. I was so not doing spaghetti western movie re-enactments against Aw Fuck, even with a machine gun in my hands while he wielded only a spear.

I turned on my heel and bolted through the jungle, keeping half an ear on the sounds of battle behind me, the occasional shouts and the bursts of gunfire, heading straight for the rise. Pumped full of adrenaline I leapt, charging up its rocky face for a good fifty feet before I lost momentum and had to slow. My heart was pounding in my ears, not in panic or exhaustion but as a side effect of a good hard run. One thing the last few months had done for all of us was force us into the best physical condition of our lives. I wasn't winded but my pounding heart was telling me it was running at its maximum speed to meet the oxygen demand of my muscles, and that, try as I might, I wasn't getting anymore out of it.

The necessity of climbing slowed me down and exerted my body in a different kind of effort. The M4 didn't have a carrying strap so I had to hold it one-handed, using the other to grab hold of whatever was available to help keep my balance as I defiantly hauled myself up. I'd abandoned the need for stealth in the interest of speed, bound and determined to get to the top of the cliff face this time, hoping that other team of soldiers would hold Aw Fuck's attention long enough to give me time to finally reach the summit.

No such luck. I froze when a hard thunk from the path just ahead of me made me lift my head and look. Aw Fuck's spear was embedded in the hardpacked dirt three feet in front of my face. He wasn't beyond it, ahead of me, and the angle of the spear was wrong for a throw from above me. I looked back over my shoulder and saw him at the base of the cliff fifty or so feet away, glaring up at me, his eyes unusually bright.

I drew myself up to the spear and used it as leverage to help me balance on the steep grade. Fucker was in good and deep, proof of the power behind the throw. Its presence emboldened me, though. Aw Fuck was injured and clearly in no mood to chase after me. And now it would seem he was unarmed.

"Hola, Aw Fuck!" I hailed him. "Lost your weapon! I'll grab it on the way back down!" I said with forced cheerfulness. No telling if he was still capable of maybe climbing after me, so no sense in pissing him off anymore than I had to. I turned away and used his spear, hoisting myself past it. Thing was as solidly planted as a tree.

"_Novio_," a gravelly, breathy voice grated, and I paused and looked back. That wasn't my voice, or Carter's voice, or any of my team's voices. Aw Fuck had actually called after me with his own voice, and it was enough to make me stop and look. He reached behind his waist and jerked something loose, then I saw something large and metallic in his hand. There was the distinct ring of metal as blades sprang free and extended. Shit. An oversized throwing star with retractable blades that had to be a half foot long each, easy. And I was betting he knew how to use it, too. I sagged, the movement making me slide down a bit on the loose scree that littered the cliff face as I clutched more tightly to his spear.

"Just to the top then back," I whined, exasperated and clearly out of options. While he might not be in the mood to chase me, he had just succinctly demonstrated that he had other painful ways of stopping me from going anyplace he didn't want me to be. He stared up at me, still holding that throwing star thing perfectly still as I dared to hold my position, alert for the slightest motion of his arm that indicated he was getting ready to make it a permanent part of my anatomy. He seemed to take my measure, frozen and holding that thing perfectly still, then he did something that retracted the blades. I guess he decided it wasn't worth killing me over. He grunted, blinked, glanced off to the right then the left, then stalked off to the side into the foliage. I took that for agreement and I let out the breath I'd been holding, then I turned away and continued back up.

With the wind knocked out of my sails, the going seemed harder but I was determined. Getting to the summit of this damned cliff had been my goal for so long I was obsessed about it. I'd picked a hard path up with a barely perceptible trail between sizable boulders, all loose and treacherous footing. I had to zig-zag to keep from sliding back down, moving from rock to rock and working my way around them, huffing and puffing by the time I reached the outcroppings near the summit. Where Aw Fuck was waiting for me, crouched on his haunches in the shade of an overhang.

"Give," he growled, holding out his hand. I paused and stared. He was bleeding pretty good, enough for it to have dripped and spattered from his torso onto his thighs, and onto the ground between them. Still holding the M4 I made my way to him, then handed it over without argument. Clearly a few shots weren't going to do anything but piss him off more. Oh, and he had retrieved his spear on the way up. The silvery metal was streaked with the crimson blood of the soldiers he'd killed so easily, one end of it planted into the ground on the outside of his left thigh, his left hand clinging to it from slightly above shoulder-height while he held his right hand out to me, palm up, for the gun.

"I just-"

He took the gun and tossed it off to his right, letting it clatter among the boulders a good twenty or so feet away, then he thumbed up behind his shoulder, indicating the path between the rocks.

"Thanks," I said quietly, then eased past him to squeeze between the boulders, moving faster now that I had the use of both hands. I didn't question his change of heart; I simply took advantage of it and picked up the pace before he changed his mind again.

There was a breeze above the boulders, and as I climbed past them I paused a second to lift my face and draw in a deep, cleansing breath that was free of the smell of jungle rot, of dampness and humidity. I scrambled a bit ungracefully up onto a larger boulder, then shakily got my balance and rose to my full height.

There was nothing to see. Just the canopy of an endless jungle that stretched in every direction, a sea of green overhung by the permanent mist of the microclimate trapped beneath it. I turned slowly, staring out at all compass points, taking the time to sweep carefully, alert for any break in the jungle, any sign of habitation, of a clearing, looking for any telltale smoke from an encampment or a sign of _any_ kind of civilization. The only definable landmark was the river, a snaking, treeless rift in the jungle. The clearing that contained our camp didn't even create enough of a dent in the canopy for me to be able to pick it out.

I stared, despairing. All this effort to get up here...for what? What to tell the others, who, like me, were counting on my achieving this summit as a first step for picking a next step, a direction to head in for escape? Again, I turned in a circle, feeling desperate. There had to be something. I couldn't go back to the camp and tell them, good news: I made it to the summit. Bad news: I have nothing to report. We're in the middle of nowhere. Pick a direction, any direction. It's all the same from here. We're trapped.

There was a rapid, pensive ticking from off to my side, and I saw Aw Fuck watching me. He was pretty much bathed in green blood from his armor-covered pecs down to his waist, both hands on his spear, leaning some of his weight on it as he watched me. He didn't look unsteady or unbalanced, though. Maybe tired, at the most. We could shoot them til we ran out of bullets if we had any; obviously it wouldn't be enough.

Completely disheartened, I leapt down from my perch on the boulder, then started back down the slope without having to be told. The descent was a helluva lot quicker than the climb, expedited by lengthy controlled slides down the more open areas. My head was full from the last few hours. Full to bursting. I needed to get things in order before I returned to camp because I had a lot to report. Problem was, I just couldn't get a handle on any of the thoughts bouncing around in there, all overshadowed by having finally achieved my primary objective but having nothing to show for it.


End file.
